


Ragnar In Westeros

by swimmingfox



Series: Sansa Washed Ashore [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV), Vikings (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vikings, F/M, Goats, Lagelstan, Mash-up, More characters to come, More relationships to come, Norse Mythology School, Ragnarok, Rolsa, Sansa as Shield Maiden, Shield Wall, Shit's going down, Vikings, obviously
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-22
Updated: 2016-01-27
Packaged: 2018-04-10 16:07:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 63,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4398452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swimmingfox/pseuds/swimmingfox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ragnar, Sansa, Rollo and the Vikings discover Westeros. Ragnar likes raiding and gaining power. That's all I'm saying. </p><p>Sequel to 'Sansa Washed Ashore'.</p><p>VIKINGS AND GAME OF THRONES MASH-UP because you know you want to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ragnar And The Fog

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ZoeSong](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZoeSong/gifts), [HeyYouWithTheFace](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeyYouWithTheFace/gifts), [PurpleMoon3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PurpleMoon3/gifts).



> **This follows directly on from Sansa Washed Ashore. I would recommend reading that one first!**
> 
> **Either way, to catch up: Sansa (now aged 19 in this fic) washed up MYSTERIOUSLY in Kattegat and stayed there for almost a year, learning their language and customs and growing up. She is now a strong person, has learnt to fight a little, had a gentle and lovely fling with Athelstan but ultimately was mad into Rollo. And married him. Hooray!**
> 
> **Meanwhile, Ragnar was always keen to hear about Westeros and has been working on how to get there (even though no one knows exactly where it is, though everyone is sure it is West); Floki built boats based on Sansa’s drawings of Westerosi boats. They amassed fighting men and women from Lagertha’s village, as well as other (OC) earls, buying their alliances with treasures from another raid on England. Thorunn died fighting in England. Siggy died saving Ragnar’s son Sigurd – these last two things were written miraculously before the relevant episodes of Season 3 were aired, because I AM THE SEER.**  
>     
>  **PS The seer was pretty gloomy about Ragnar’s chances in Westeros. Just sayin’.**
> 
> ***
> 
>  **POV Guide** :
> 
> Sansa is third person past tense.
> 
> Ragnar is third person present tense.
> 
> Rollo is second person past tense.
> 
> Lagertha is first person present tense.
> 
> ***
> 
> [INSPIRATION PICTURE](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-CJSFrRCzvzY/U_YyCqv-MTI/AAAAAAAAC5w/8gpvKpge00I/w1280-h887/tumblr_mo9iwdUmDK1snsvfso1_1280.jpg)  
> as sent by my ace editor, ZoeSong.  
> 

Fog.

A thick fog that has lasted for days, and then weeks. A fog like flour and water, mixed. 

Floki’s great boats had travelled well for many days, moving under skies with clouds like cottonweed. Spirits were high, and on Ragnar’s ship there were loud songs to the gods and stories that were not as good as the ones that people would sing about him one day. 

They had come upon a big, silent land that was nothing but ice-mountain, coasted along it, rounding a point. There were colours in the ice that reminded Ragnar of the lights he had seen in the sky in Kattegat, but the shape of the land had not matched the maps and they had sailed on. 

After that, he had woken up to a fog that Torstein said had come overnight. It was not a sea-mist he knew - something that Rán would make, or Frigg with her clouds. This was tangled, thick as sheep’s wool. The sunstones stayed dull, no matter how long they were held in the air. 

The boats had drifted, the oars laid down. It had become impossible to navigate. There was talk of going back, but where was that? No one knew which direction they travelled in anymore. Not even Ragnar. 

Bjørn, Lagertha and Athelstan are on a different boat. It may be behind them still. It is hard to know. One by one, after they entered the fog, boats disappeared. They were there, dull grey shadows flanking him, and then they were not. There were perhaps four boats near them now. Sometimes they would call to each other, and sometimes they would hear something back. But for the last day, there have been no shouts.

‘It is her fault.’ A dry snake-hiss in his ear. 

Ragnar does not need to look up to know who Floki means. 

***

Sansa sat at the prow with a woollen blanket round her shoulders, her hair made brown in the long-fog. She was only one of a few women on this boat – some young shieldmaidens sailed with them, but mostly there were warriors and slaves. Ylva sat on her lap, curled into a fist-shape.

The doubts had crept in with the fog. At first the looks were from men and women from the other villages - some of Lagertha’s, Earl Olesen’s and Earl Edman’s were on this ship – or slaves. But as looks had splintered into whispers, they spread to people she had lived amongst for almost a year. Floki. Torstein. And Ragnar. He would watch her – if they were on the same side of the boat, as you could not see the further in the fog – and pick at the wood of the mast. Two sharp stones that the sun always found their way into, even though there was no sun. 

England took three days, she heard them whisper. She had bewitched Ragnar, she heard. Tricked him. Tricked them all. There was no Westeros. Only this fog-realm, which was Niflheim. She was Hel herself. 

‘Ignore them,’ said her husband, leaning over her with a piece of grey, slippery fish in his fingers.

Her _husband_. She had married Rollo the day before they had been supposed to leave, before that dark, drunk man had stabbed him and made her think that her life would never be allowed joy, not since guards had come for her father. But though Rollo’s wounds had been severe, he had recovered, and Ragnar had stayed the whole Northman fleet until his brother was ready to travel, instead sending the earls to Sansa and Athelstan to learn the Common Tongue, which they did with varying degrees of success.

The bit of fish danced in front of Sansa’s eyes. ‘Do you want this?’ Rollo said. ‘There aren’t many today.’

‘You have it.’ She leaned her head against the edge of the boat.

‘I would rather see my wife eat it.’ His voice was soft and grained, a fog-voice. 

At night, he would curl himself around her, his blanket over both of them, though they still woke up drenched and damp from the air, half-melded together.

‘I’m not hungry,’ she said. 

A hand on the back of her neck. ‘We are all hungry.’

‘Give it to one of the slaves, then.’

Rollo gazed at her, and at Ylva, who was sitting by his ankles, thin but alert, her ears pricked. He pretended to stick the fish in his mouth and gulped, before giving it to the little wolf and smiling at Sansa. Though they had seen nothing but dark water, spray and fog for days and days, she saw the woods of his homeland in his eyes. 

If she ever saw doubt blooming there, she would know it was over.

***

‘Drink, Bjørn.’

‘No, Mother. You should drink.’

My son suffers. He never says that it is so, but he finally gave up his rowing, and now sits under a fur, his face too pale. His face that is his father’s face, and a little of me. The sorrow tells me he is thinking of Thorunn again, and that he feels nearer to her. Too near.

Freyja. Hear me.

I go to Athelstan, whose eyes seem too big for his head, and ringed black with sickness, and make him drink the goat-milk that is as thin as water. It is two days old, and the starving goat it came from fed a few mouths. 

Athelstan does not protest. He drinks, and he smiles at me. I think his corpse would smile gently. I should not think of that. 

Frigg, hear me.

‘Perhaps you should pray to your god,’ I say, putting my hand on his neck.

‘He is not mine.’ The words are very quiet, almost lost amongst the waves. For many days, he taught the men Sansa’s words on the boat, and now no one wants to hear them. For what good is the language of a place that is only a dream?

‘Perhaps you should make him yours again.’ I put my mouth close to his ear. ‘We need all the gods we can get.’

Another smile, along with a sound from his stomach, or mine.

Hunger. Ragnar has always been hungry. For a wife, for sons, for his own farm, for treasures, for land that no Northman has ever set foot on, for stories about him that wind as long as Jörmungandr’s tail. Hunger spreads quickly. We are all chasing Ragnar’s hunger. We are all now chasing our own.

Freyja. Frigg. Sif. Gods of strength and earth. I ask you, with all my body, to find us, to turn our ship towards land. Any land. New, or old. 

Somewhere, Ragnar’s boat is in this same fog. 

My son is sick. Athelstan is sick. And if I admit it to myself, I am sick. 

***

No one had caught a thing today. It was as if Aegir and his daughters were just underneath you all, playing tricks, keeping the fish quiet and low in the sea-dark. The stores had been used up days before.

When you had been recovering from your wounds in Kattegat, you could eat nothing but cabbage soup and in your head you had thrown knives and axes and shields and swords at the servants who brought them, though in truth you could hardly move. If someone brought you cabbage soup now, you would give them all the things you had kept from your first English raids. You hated being hungry more than anything. 

Almost anything. Now you watched your wife, the girl washed ashore from the sea, hungry, tired, thin. It was as if the fog had got into her skin, stolen her winter bloom and her summer colours. You said another prayer under your breath to Odin. You would stay strong, for as long as you could.

‘Sansa,’ you said. ‘What are you looking at?’ 

She was staring out into the grey that did not end. Perhaps the Niflungar were out there.

She did not look at you. ‘The raven.’

There was no raven. Ragnar had sent the last one out this morning. When the first had been thrown into the sky, it had not come back, and everyone had punched each others’ shoulders, drunk water quickly. And the fog had stayed. No land. Three more ravens had not come back. 

Muttering behind you. You looked over your shoulder, at a man from another village. Red eyes, yellow pus down his tunic. ‘What?’

He lifted his eyes as if they were heavy stones. ‘She wanted this.’ A slow nod towards Sansa.

‘And why would she want this?’

‘She is an evil spirit. Sent by Loki. To kill us all.’

‘I think you should shut that mouth of yours.’

‘How do you not see it? She has put her magic on us all.’ White at the side of his mouth. He was taken with hunger and fog-madness.

Sansa wrapped the blanket closer around herself and the wolf cub.

‘She put her magic in you, too.’ The man stood up, wobbling. A finger grabbing at his crotch as his voice rose. ‘You sucked on her, and it has poisoned your blood so that you are blind to it. We have come out into this Hel for nothing, and we are surrounded by our dead, all of them are in the air, and we are all going to die, _all_ of us, for this bitch -’

Your knife was in him before you even took a breath, up under his ribs, going in soft as cheese. The man jerked, flung himself against you, which only made it easier to stab him again, until the blood burst from his mouth like berries at harvest-time. Cheese. Berries.

You threw him overboard. A sacrifice for Rán, though she might not thank you for this one.

Floki was shivering, his eyebrows sewn together. ‘What a clever thing to do, Rollo.’ His voice said that he meant the opposite.

‘What?’

‘If you had not thrown him overboard at least some of us might have eaten today.’

You went over, put your nose in front of his. ‘Is that what we are now? We eat our own?’

A giggle, small and foul-smelling. ‘Perhaps it is quite pleasant with salt. Though he was a little on the thin side.’ His face became all lines, a pulled fishing net, as he looked at you. ‘Someone with a bit more meat on them might do us well.’

Your brother had come quickly up to this end of the boat, pushing past slaves. ‘What is happening?’

Floki wiped a hand against his cheek. Most of his black markings had rubbed away now, leaving a little patch like a bruise. ‘Rollo is killing sailors. It gives him something to do.’

Ragnar stared at you, his eyes wild and dull at the same time, his head sweating with fog-drops.

‘He is better off dead,’ you said. There was a small half-sob from Sansa, and you wished you had not spoken. ‘I did not mean -’ You squatted down next to her. ‘We will find land soon.’

‘I would like to know something.’ Ragnar walked over to you both, folded his arms, spoke to Sansa. It sounded as if he had been sharpening his voice. ‘When the moon ate the sun in Kattegat, you could feel your brothers. Your sister. The pull of them, you said.’ He leant down to her, but looked away, as if listening for something else. ‘What can you feel now?’ 

‘Ragnar,’ you said.

‘I am asking her.’ Spoken as if they were all playing a game, but one with blades and blindfolds.

Even under the blanket, you could see Sansa’s shoulders lower. ‘I don’t know,’ she said.

‘What?’

She turned and stared at him. ‘I can’t feel anything.’

You felt a little stone settle in your stomach. 

Ragnar stood up and his sigh vanished into the dark air. ‘Perhaps everyone is right,’ he said, more loudly. Heads turned. ‘Perhaps there is no West-er-os.’ His eyes were as wide as the sea. ‘Perhaps there is nothing past England, just this long sea, going on forever. Perhaps you never felt anything in the first place. Perhaps this was all a test, a joke, all of this just a joke, the five kings, the big house built on gold, the tall ice-wall, to see what I would believe, what my brother would believe -’ 

‘ _Ragnar_.’ This time, your voice had wonder in it.

***

As Ragnar’s voice had grown louder, his chest swelling, Sansa had uttered prayers. Prayers to the old gods, the new, every Northman god she could think of, their names racing through her mind like a sharp wind. And something had happened. The air shifted. Perhaps his anger was bringing a final wave of the sea down upon their heads.

But it was not sea. It was sky. 

Peeling away like the layers of an onion, the fog lifted, seemingly from right above Ragnar’s head. Or like skirts and underskirts and shifts. Everyone looked up and at each other as around them the sea spread wide and glimmering, the sun slippery as melted butter on the water. As if it had never been anything but there.

Ragnar seemed to be the last to notice. When he finally did, he turned around in a full circle, very slowly.

‘Brother.’ Rollo was inhaling slowly.

Ragnar looked at him. 

‘Can you not smell it?’

Ragnar breathed in, though his whole body remained very still. He slid his eyes to Floki, who had uncurled himself, every part of him suddenly alert. ‘The bob.’

Floki had gone and returned before Sansa had barely blinked, holding something small attached to a coiled rope. It was tossed overboard, feeding through his fingers.

Above them, there were clouds, like great white birds. Sansa had never been so glad to see clouds. 

The rope was brought back up. Ragnar, Rollo and Floki hunched over the little object, a tiny, scooped bowl, dabbing their fingers into it. Ragnar rubbed it between his fingers. Floki touched his lips, licked them. They all looked at each other.

Ragnar grinned.

***

Fresh water and sea water. There is land.

Ragnar forgets that he is hungry. He forgets that he is anything but the prow of this ship, pointing forwards, towards a new place, a place that none of his people have ever set foot on. 

He shouts for oars, and the men slowly find their strength as they blink into the sun. The ship moves. 

Floki’s sailor-self has also returned. He tests the sea-bed again, twice more, and points. The sun-stone glows in Rollo’s hand as he holds it up.

Land. Once, Eng-land. Once, the ice-land that they passed. And now, as he turns to shouts from men with better eyes than he, another land. 

As they near it, he helps Sansa up. ‘Is it yours?’

She leans into him a little, weak from lack of water. ‘I – I don’t know.’

A little thread is pulled downwards in him. Ignore it. He puts a hand around her shoulder, points, uses his kind voice. Brother-in-law voice. ‘Look.’

She frowns at the long, low green stretch. There is another, and water between them. A river-mouth. 

‘Is it Kingslanding?’ he says.

She shakes her head. ‘No. There is no castle. No boats.’

Ragnar tries to eat his impatience. ‘Princess. Is this West-er-os or not?’

‘I can’t know every rock.’ A flash of her own impatience from the princess he remembers before they left Kattegat. ‘I haven’t seen all of it.’

‘We will find out soon enough, brother,’ says Rollo, quietly.

They sail upriver, not speaking. A village on the right and later, another on the other side. Sansa still shakes her head.

Ragnar chews on his tongue as the wide water thins. There are no great houses. Tall walls. No people. One or two empty rowboats. The hairs lift up on his arms as he sees a little trail of smoke in the distance.

Floki is behind him. ‘Are you sure we are not in Eng-land again, Ragnar?’ He points to the right. Quite far from the shore is a tall building, surrounded by smaller white ones, and sheep. No – there are men. Digging. Wearing long cloaks. Like priests. 

Perhaps they have come to Lindisfarne again.

‘It is Westeros,’ says Sansa, and her voice is like the lightening of the fog, the fog that he thought would kill them all.

Rollo looks at her. Floki looks at her. Ragnar’s grip tightens on her shoulder. 

She is gazing at it, pointing to the highest steeple, which has many angles. ‘Seven points.’ A little tide-line appears in her forehead, and is smoothed out. ‘I think it may be the Quiet Isle.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Oh God. I hope you don't mind this probably not being a rapidly-updated story. But all that pleading over on SWA got to me. Gulp.**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> ***
> 
>  **Norse Mythology School** :
> 
>  _Freyja_ – god of fertility, love, gold, war and death.  
>  _Frigg_ – goddess of the atmosphere, and wisdom.  
>  _Sif_ – goddess of the earth.  
>  _Rán_ – goddess of the sea, and also storms; married to:  
>  _Aegir_ – god of the sea. He and Rán have nine daughters.
> 
>  _Niflheim_ is the realm of fog and mist. The _Niflungar_ are the ‘children of the mist’. The goddess _Hel_ resides there, bringing men and woman who have not died in battle.
> 
>  _Jörmungandr_ is the massive sea-serpent whose body and tail stretches around the earth.
> 
>  **  
> **  
> Navigation Notes  
>     
> One of the few navigation instruments the Vikings had at their disposal was a plumb bob, which they used for assessing the depth of the water. The plumb bob also collected a tiny sample of the seabed, which the men could then taste and touch. An experienced sailor could link the taste to other characteristics. It’s likely that the Vikings have been able to determine, using only their taste buds, if fresh water flowed from land into the sea water.


	2. Ragnar on the Quiet Isle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Thanks for all the comments so far! They are VERY ENCOURAGING.**
> 
> **A reminder that Rollo is the second person POV. Everything else should be more obvious.**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> **Ta to editor ZoeSong.**

Your feet sank into the dark mud and water. Land. 

Up on the slope above you, a few priests were running, and it was like England all over again. Shields, banging together as the men and women of your boat found their land legs after so long at sea. The splash of boot on sea and mud. Sounds that were beautiful. 

Water. Food. Staggering, running up the banks, swords trailed low, everyone scattered, bellies shouting louder than anything. There were no bells, no priest’s voices.

You led a small group up a path, Sansa behind you with her sword in her hand and the pup at her heels, faster than she should be for a starving wolf. ‘Rollo, they are holy men.’

‘I hope they are holy men who grow vegetables and bake bread.’ There is a tall building ahead of you with four shapes like sails, turning round. Perhaps it is a temple.

She caught up, and her voice was the voice that stilled you at night, in the morning. ‘We don’t have to kill them. Do we?’

‘Not if they do not fight us.’ Your younger self would have laughed at this older Rollo.

A man came down to you. A long brown cloak, like Athelstan in England.

Ragnar stopped in front of him, his sword dangling outwards. ‘Food,’ he said, in Sansa’s tongue, the Common one.

The man had his hands in front of him like an injured bird. Not speaking.

‘This is West-er-os?’ said Ragnar.

The man swallowed.

‘West-er-os?’ 

Still the priest did not speak, but his eyes moved very fast.

‘Where is your tongue?’ Your brother moved very fast, dropping his shield and taking the man’s jaw, opening it. A pink tongue lolled out. The man was gasping. Ragnar let him go. ‘Perhaps it is not what you thought,’ he said to Sansa, and you could see the tiredness and hunger in him, working like the start of madness. ‘He does not understand.’

‘This is ______?’ she said to the priest. His eyes flickered. ‘I think they do not speak,’ she said to you, and to your brother. ‘A vow of silence.’

‘Just what we need.’ Ragnar’s eyes became wide, and there was air in his voice. ‘Silent men to tell us nothing at all.’ 

‘Let’s go to their church,’ said Torstein, pointing his sword up the hill. ‘That is probably where they are all hiding.’

You put the tip of your axe-blade against the man’s back. ‘Take us there.’ You said it again, this time as best you could in Sansa’s tongue. Of course your brother had learnt more words than you.

The man nodded, and Ragnar glared at Sansa, and at you, and at everyone, before following him up through the fields. The fishponds had the colour of old coins - some of your men were already there, using their hands as cups. Sheep on a far hill. You could eat a whole sheep right now. You would tear the wool off it and eat it raw and crunch its bones. 

Ahead of you all was a low wall and some buildings, the sail-fingered one amongst them. There was the wooden house that Sansa had pointed to from the boat, with glass in the windows, and its seven sided-roof. It was very quiet. 

‘It could be a trap,’ said Floki, in his insect-voice. ‘They could all be waiting behind there with weapons.’

Another man came out, in the same monk-cloak, big, his head shaved to the skin. He stood at the gate of the wall that surrounded the buildings and their church. Its door was tall, wooden, with carvings of a man and a woman on it.

He said a word. 

‘Thank you,’ Sansa said in her own tongue, and she listened as he spoke more. His voice was low and strong. ‘He welcomes us,’ she said. 

The priest looked round at many of the men, looked at you, his eyes very firm and calm. The English monks had hidden, run, squealed like piglets as they died. This one was different.

She spoke to him again. You heard the words _food_ and _drink_. ‘He sees that we are all tired,’ she said. ‘But he says that they only have food for the men who live here. That they can spare a night’s food perhaps.’ She turned to Ragnar with a small, disbelieving smile. ‘It is the Quiet Isle.’ She talked more to him.

‘Slower,’ said Ragnar. ‘What are you both saying?’

‘He suggests that we sail further inland to Darry or back to Maidenpool.’ She listened again. ‘That our boat will flounder in the mud if we do not go soon. The tide goes out very fast.’

Ragnar turned around in a circle, slowly, before smiling a bright smile at the man. ‘We have no food to trade because we have been at sea for longer than we expected. This looks a rich place.’ His hunger spoke louder than his mind, for once. ‘We will stay as long as we need to.’

The priest did not understand the words.

Ragnar smiled again. ‘Give us food or we kill you,’ he said, loud and quiet at once, in the priest’s tongue. 

You did not look at Sansa.

***

There is something of a fighter about this head priest, in his look before he nods and leads Ragnar and the others over the top of the hill to a low, flat house. Around them, more men come out, dressed like the English monks. Some of them have wool wrapped around their faces, and he can only see their eyes. They stand and watch, their hands tucked into their sleeves.

‘I do not like it, Ragnar,’ whispers Floki again.

The way no one speaks makes Ragnar itch. His head hurts from lack of water. He is sure that he can smell mead in the air. A man puts his sword up, a quick warning jab in the air towards one of the priests, who jerks back. Everyone is starving, and angry. He can feel the need for blood in his men as much as their need for food.

As they pass a doorway, a priest comes out very quickly and walks almost into one of his men, and a sword is put into his belly, and then it is as if a flock of pigeons have broken free from rafters. There is loud breathing from the priests and one or two of them say a word, and everything happens very fast. Swords are out and at throats, and a few more between ribs. Three priests fall.

Some of the priests run further down the far slope. Rollo and some of the men run after them.

The head priest is speaking, even though he has an axe at his neck.

Sansa is shouting. ‘Stop – _stop_ it. What are you doing?’

Floki is spinning the point of a dagger in the face of a priest whose eyes are very wide. ‘This is what we do, Blóðughadda. You married one of us.’ He rests the edge of the dagger between the priest’s eyebrows without even looking at him. ‘Get used to it.’

She throws her shield down. ‘I will not kill an unarmed man. They are men of faith.’

‘Not _my_ faith.’

‘It is mine.’

Floki looks pleased and furious all at one. ‘I heard you swear to _our_ gods as well as yours.’

Ragnar is very tired. The princess is going to be as difficult as Lagertha ever was. He tries not to wonder where Lagertha and his son and Athelstan are.

‘Ragnar!’ Torstein is calling, in a voice that sounds like he needs help. 

Ragnar follows a pebbled path through trees down to a white building, towards the sounds of fighting. Metal on metal. Floki was right. They _are_ armed. 

***

You had run after the priests over the wooden planks that were pressed into the mud, slipping and falling twice, Torstein somewhere behind you. It was better this way sometimes still. No trading or talking, just killing. Taking. 

The priests had scattered but you had killed one, followed a second into a stable, another man with you. There was the angry red sound of a fierce horse and the priest nowhere to be seen and your man made a sound behind you that you knew meant death.

You twisted, axe up, and met another blade. Much force in the blow, which you felt all the way to your stomach. 

You fought. He was big, taller than you, and you could not see his face. Skilled with his sword, which was long. The metal sharper than your own. A lot of strength in his arm, though one leg seemed to hang low. 

An animal sound from him as he lunged forward again, and you used the weakness in his leg to get past him, stab him in the arm. The fighter staggered back and dropped to his knees. You put your axe to his neck, readied.

Ragnar was there. ‘Are you alright, brother?’

It felt like your wounds had opened again, though when you felt them there was no wetness. ‘They did trick us.’

Ragnar’s look told you not to kill him, not yet. A knot in your throat. Why did he always let people live? ‘I am not sure,’ he said, his eyes becoming narrow. ‘It is perhaps only this one.’

‘He has killed three of our men,’ said Torstein, standing up from the felled Kattegat man. ‘Two further up the hill. Perhaps he was planning to kill us all, one by one.’

The tall man spat. You used your axe blade to push back the fighter’s hood.

At the same time, Sansa was there, behind Ragnar, stopping suddenly as if she had been running very fast. She made a sound, not quite a cry, not quite a word.

There was a shaft of sunlight like the path of an arrow across her shieldmaiden hair and her face, but you could see well enough. That she was staring at the fighter. And he was staring at her.

***

It was him. Not in armour or his kingsguard cloak, and thinner, but it was him. His cowl down, sweat plastered his long, dark hair to one side of his face, but the other was exposed. The skin curled and twisted. The Hound. 

Sansa couldn’t move. Slowly, she closed her mouth, swallowed, lowered her shield arm. Rollo was staring at her.

Ragnar was looking between them both, curiosity curling his mouth up. ‘You know this man?’

It was as if she had never left. As if she was still imprisoned in Red Keep walls, and he was there, behind her, in the shadows, threatening her, looking out for her. ‘Yes.’

‘The fuck is this?’ The Hound was glaring at her, his own mouth hanging open. ‘Shacked up with Ironborn?’ His voice was thick as oil with disgust.

Sansa straightened. She was not in the Red Keep. The Red Keep was a long time ago. ‘No. This is King Ragnar.’

He spat, and Torstein moved away just in time. ‘Never fucking heard of him. And thought you didn’t get kings north of the wall.’

Of course he would think that. _She_ had thought that, when she had first found herself there. ‘He’s not a wildling. None of them are.’

‘They look like them.’ His quick look, from her head to her toe, was as good as a nick with a dagger. ‘ _You_ bloody do.’

Ragnar was walking around The Hound, a lazy, intrigued smile on his face. ‘I thought Athelstan was the only fighting priest.’

‘What’s he saying?’ said The Hound. ‘What tongue is that?’

Sansa was hardly listening to either of them. Why was he wearing the cloak the holy men wore? Was he in hiding? A spy? ‘These are a different people, from – over the sea.’

‘From where?’

‘A place called Kattegat.’

‘Never heard of that either.’ He was staring at her sword again. ‘The hells have you done?’

How on earth would she ever be able to explain it? To anyone? ‘I – found these people and they looked after me.’

The Hound was glaring up past Sansa’s shoulder, an axe-blade’s worth of sunlight shining on his wounds. They were no less startling than they had ever been, but she had seen rather a lot since then.

Next to him, Rollo was breathing heavily. Two wounded warriors. Rollo’s side still gave him pain. It had been too early for him to travel, let alone fight.

‘Princess,’ said Ragnar, his eyes bright-glinting. ‘Who is this man?’

‘This is -’ she couldn’t say _The Hound_. ‘This is Sandor Clegane. A -’ Not a knight. ‘He was the guard of the king.’

‘The king who beat you?’ Rollo stepped closer again, put his blade to The Hound’s throat.

The Hound tilted his head, his neck exposed. The blade flashed. ‘Call that a weapon?’

Oh Gods. ‘ _Don’t_ ,’ she said.

‘What is he saying about my axe?’ said Rollo, leaning over him. 

The Hound grinned.

‘Don’t, Rollo.’ She placed a hand on his arm. ‘He – helped me. More than once.’ A memory of the Hound’s face, slaked in blood and shadow, in her chamber. She had thought of him often after that, wondering where he had gone, and why she hadn’t gone with him. ‘Put it down.’

Rollo’s eyes were dark, questioning, but he did so, slowly. His axe remained poised in the air.

The Hound’s eyes moved from the axe to Rollo to Sansa. ‘This your sworn shield?’

Was that what _he_ would have been, that night he had come to her? Or would she have been lost, left for dead in the woods? Though Sansa had still not eaten, she felt a strength in her as good as meat, as good as wine. ‘This is my husband. Rollo. Brother of the king.’

The Hound went very still. A tiny, incredulous breath. Dust in the air.

Floki was at the door. ‘Ragnar. Come and look.’

***

Out on the sea, there are shapes.

‘Are they ours?’ Ragnar says.

Floki has his teeth under his thumbnail as if there are grubs under there. ‘I am not sure yet.’

Together, and with his other men joining them, they watch the two ships come closer. A banner. A raven - one of his Kattegat boats. A hawk, for Earl Borgerson. Ragnar should feel another fog lift from him, but he does not. 

Because there is no deer banner. Lagertha’s ship is not there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Norse Mythology School** :
> 
>  _Blóðughadda_ is one of the sea-god Aegir’s nine daughters. The name means ‘blood-red sea-foam,’ and is Floki’s nickname for Sansa.
> 
> I made up Lagertha’s deer banner. The Vikings normally raided with raven banners flying from their ships.


	3. Ragnar Rests

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Thorstein Bjergson, who is an impatient bastard.
> 
> With big thanks to editor ZoeSong.

Ragnar walks around the cave. There are wool rugs on the floor and rugs hanging on the walls. He has sent his most rested men to collect food for the others, and mountains of vegetables have been made in the monks’ great hall. 

The priest with the shaved head stands at the doorway, flanked by Torstein and Gedda. This is his living place. ‘You _____ killed five of my brothers,’ he says, with his hands folded in front of him.

Ragnar is opening a wooden chest. There are books inside. ‘I am sorry.’ Said very lightly, as if the men had only been moths whose wings were crushed in his fingers. That is all they were.

One of the books has drawings of a woman, a bearded man, a tall dark man with no face. A young girl. So they like to make their drawings, as the English do. He tries not to think about Athelstan, or to think of his son wrapped in Rán’s fog. His ex-wife-earl.

‘How long ____ you _____ here?’

Ragnar can understand him enough. ‘As long as we need.’ He glances up from the book at the priest, who does not seem shocked, or frightened, or angry. A calm man, unlike that one in the stables. The priest nods, slowly, though he seems to be thinking. Perhaps he is thinking of sending for men to come and fight them. More men like the fighting priest.

‘I am ________ you were all able to come here,’ the priest says. 

‘What do you mean?’

‘This is a difficult place to reach, for many people. ________ you have the faith of the Seven.’

A strange number to choose for their gods. It is not three, or nine. He can only think of the seventh rune, _gyfu_. The honour and promise. One gives, the other accepts. 

Ragnar puts his finger on the picture of the dark man. ‘We have good faith.’ He corrects himself, and wishes he knew their word for _strong_. ‘ _A_ good faith.’ Though it was true that the tired men and women from Earl Borgerson’s two ships struggled over the bog-beach, and three fell down and never got up again. ‘Perhaps our gods are kinder than yours.’ He rises from his crouching position, stretches his back. He has eaten – the kitchens look as if a wind-spirit has flown through them - enough to remember his old self just a little more. Some Odin-spirit. 

The priest says something. It does not sound like an invitation to visitors that is the custom in his own Northman lands, yet it is still in a voice as smooth as the mud that surrounds this island.

Ragnar uses his toe to draw _gyfu_ ’s cross in the dust on the floor. His own gift. ‘You are healing men. You have herbs. Food. You will look after my men until we are ready to leave.’ He looks up at the priest and smiles, letting the skin at the edge of one eye meet. ‘And I will not kill any more of you.’

He leaves the book and stands at the doorway. He hears the thin sound of a goat bleating amongst the sheep and half-turns back to the priest. ‘I think this will do me very well.’

Sansa is outside the door of the cave. Her arms are folded. ‘You should not have done that.’

Ragnar gazes past her, out to a sea that is calm and bright. ‘Done what?’ he says.

‘The _brothers_.’ 

There is nothing out there of the fog that almost killed them all. As if he had dreamt it. ‘Did you see me kill any men?’

‘You should be able to control yours, not have them kill priests as if they were sheep to be slaughtered.’ Her voice is quiet but thrusting, a knife in the air.

‘You should watch your tongue, princess. You are still talking to a king.’

‘In _my_ land.’

A princess. That is not certain yet, he supposes, but otherwise he has always been right to trust her. She is of this land, and the fighting priest knows her. Though he did not look on her as if she was of noble birth. ‘I seem to remember a scared girl with red hair saying she did not want to go back. Or perhaps you do not remember. Then you said you needed help to go to your land.’ He turns away, air in his voice. ‘Perhaps you do not want me and my men anymore.’ 

Her breath comes out as if she is trying to make kindling take flame. ‘If there is word sent that holy men, brothers, were killed by us – why should anyone respect you _or_ me? Why should anyone want to ever fight with us? This is the faith of the Seven. The main faith of Westeros. You didn’t kill priests in England when you last went, for Athelstan -’

Ragnar feels a little bruise in his stomach at his friend’s name. Athelstan, cradled in Rán’s hands. Making her laugh like he had started to make Lagertha laugh this summer. ‘As I said, I did not kill these men.’ He shrugs. ‘It would have been better if they had not been killed. But hunger makes men move quickly.’

Her lips come together. A gust of air fighting through them.

‘I want to find out what is happening in this land,’ he says. ‘Once we have rested, we will talk to the head priest. And we will talk to this man you know.’ 

Little grey clouds pass over her eyes. 

***

Frejya, I thank you. Frigg, I thank you. Sif. I swear that I will always be true to you, and to all the gods.

When the fog lifted, everyone on the boat went very still, and then shouted and sang. They kept singing, even though there was still no food, as they rowed, any freeman or slave that had the strength. Bjørn found his own new strength, for he is blessed with something that not even his father has.

I looked behind us, and it was as if the gods themselves had been our shadows, until they came closer. They were boats. Our boats. Earl Edman, Earl Olesen among them. The ox banner, and the Kattegat ravens. We called to each other, threw smiles over the water. Now fish bit on our lines, even though we had no bait.

The air is much colder here. It is not a summer sea. We find all of our furs, and huddle close as Njörðr brings his winds under our sails and the ships move together. I walk amongst the people of my boat, who feast on raw cod-fish and eels, hoping that my smiles and words will be enough to keep them strong and alive.

Our ravens flew long ago and did not return, but I still look for another raven in the sky, sewn onto wool-cloth. Ragnar’s boat remains lost to us.

‘Mother.’

I walk over, stand at my son’s shoulder. 

‘Look,’ he says. 

Something at the edge of sea and sky. I hope it is not Lyngbakr, sent to trick us with his raised back. 

‘The gods have blessed us,’ says Bjørn. 

Slowly, land makes itself known. Behind it, the sky has a light that makes me think of Ragnar’s eyes when he has thought of something new. The light makes the land darker, and I can see its shape. 

An island.

***

The Hound had been made prisoner in the stables and had five Northman guards. There were ropes binding his wrists together and chained to wall. His feet were also tied and his arm, where Rollo had hit him with his axe, was crudely wrapped. 

He only looked up when Sansa stepped nearer, and then his chin stayed raised, defiantly. ‘So you managed to bring another fucking want-to-be king onto Westerosi soil.’ 

Sansa knew that he would be brought to Ragnar soon, but she had to speak to him first. Alone. ‘He _is_ a king. In his land.’ 

The Hound’s eyes flickered down to her breeches, suspicious. He had eyed them yesterday as if she was wearing gold, or cave lionskin. ‘Thought you were married to the Imp.’

Sansa straightened. ‘Not any more.’

He stared at her. ‘He know that?’

‘He will.’ She hoped she looked more confident than she felt. Her divorce had been granted by Ragnar in words alone, and it was unlikely that Tywin Lannister would recognise it. That said, she was fairly sure he would rather have her dead now than married to Tyrion.

‘So, what now? You and your wildlings-who-aren’t-wildlings are going to have me killed? Because, if you are, then bloody well get on with it.’ He kicked his heel at the hay. There was a sweet, sweated stench in here.

‘Of course not.’ She didn’t know Ragnar’s plans for him, but she would not have him killed. Not after everything. Even if he seemed to hate her more than ever. ‘He wants to talk to you. We both do.’

The Hound looked like he wanted to say many things, a mute fury and puzzlement in his eyes, but his breaths remained just breaths. He seemed, for all his bulk and anger, different.

‘How long have you been here?’ she said.

A sniff. ‘Months. Feels like fucking years.’

‘You didn’t take – a vow of silence?’ 

A small, vicious breath that was almost a laugh. ‘I did until you came along.’

‘And -’ she glanced at his leg, sticking out awkwardly. ‘What happened to your leg?’

He turned to her suddenly, almost lunged, the ropes becoming taut. Sansa leaned backwards, quickly, but kept her gaze firm. Two of the Northmen stepped closer, their swords up, but she raised her hand. She would not be cowed by him. Not any more.

He drew the tip of his tongue over his teeth. A grin that looked murderous. ‘A knight did me in.’

‘Who – who were you fighting for?’

‘Fuck that. For no one. For -’ A shadow seemed to grip his face, and he let out a great sigh, turning to the wall. ‘She was probably looking for you and fucking all.’

 _She_? ‘Looking for me? A – a woman?’

‘Ay, a woman. Biggest bitch I’ve ever seen. Gods, if I ever saw her again -’

‘But – why would she be looking for me?’

‘Paid by the Lannisters. Taking you back, maybe.’ He looked at her. ‘You. And your sister.’

Sansa felt her stomach open up and water flood in. _Sister_. A word that held unimaginable weight, and brought a strange, taut pain. ‘You saw Arya?’

Another odd laugh. ‘Ay.’

‘When? How long ago?’

‘Before I washed up here.’

‘Where did you see her?’

The Hound was staring at the wall again, as if he hoped he could melt it down. ‘Another time, girl. I’m tired.’

 _Arya_. ‘But – she’s alive?’

‘Last time I looked.’ He seemed much older, and leached of some of his spirit, suddenly. His shoulders slumped. 

Sansa took a breath to ask him again. He couldn’t tell her that and then just – 

But the Hound flung a quick, dark look at her. ‘Leave me be, alright? Fucking – not now.’ He jerked his head at his arm, a purple stain beginning to feather on the bandage. ‘This wound won’t be talked into healing.’

***

‘Hello, shieldmaiden.’

Sansa and her wolf were sitting in the doorway of the little low house you had taken, where she had said that women stayed sometimes. You could not imagine women being here. Perhaps they came over on the flat boats out on the mud to suck a priest’s cock once in while and then the priests went back to pretending they did not sleep with women.

You sat down next to her and put your hand on Ylva’s ears. There was a little colour in your wife’s cheeks now, like blood on a pearlwort. ‘You look better.’

She stayed looking out at the long mud and flat water, but nodded. ‘I never thought that bread would taste so good.’

‘I am glad we landed here. It is good to rest.’ Two monks with shaking hands had served you crab stew and cider. You were feeling a little light-headed, though not as much as Floki, who had stolen a priest’s cloak and was walking around frightening some of them by suddenly taking his hood down and making breath-growls, his tongue sticking out.

‘They have been kind. Even though you killed some of their men.’ She stared at you, her eyes two blunted blades. 

‘I am not sorry.’ You pulled out a crab claw from your pocket and gave it to Ylva. 

A furious breath through her nose, the sound of a fast oar through water. ‘You should be.’

‘We would not have done if they had not panicked. And anyway, we were not the only ones to kill.’ Ragnar had ordered the bodies of the men that the fighting priest had slain, as well as the mud-drowned ones, be burnt at the bottom of the hill. The priest had looked at her like you used to look at Lagertha, long ago. ‘This man. You were – not friends?’

Her face became very serious, as if she was learning your tongue for the first time again. ‘No. Not friends.’ A little breath of air. ‘It’s hard to explain. He was always rude, and cruel, sometimes. But only with words. He was the only one who warned me about things. Once there was a terrible - ’ she chewed her lip. ‘I don’t know the word. The poor people of the city were angry and fighting, and these men had me and pushed me down, and -’ A breath, cut up. ‘They would have raped me. And he came and killed them all and took me back to the castle.’ 

You looked at your knuckles, at where the bone seemed to want to break through the skin. _You_ would have killed them all, and all of the people for letting it happen.

Her eyes had the last part of a sunset behind them. ‘He saw Arya.’

Wind swept up the slope through the twisted trees, trees like the hands of old men praying. The little shieldmaiden sister. ‘Then your wolf-dreams were right.’

The pup was still trying to gnaw at the hard shell. You tugged it from her teeth and broke it open. She licked the white strands of meat from your fingers.

Sansa shivered. You helped her up, and took her inside.

‘Is it odd to be back in your land?’ You thought of the many times you had returned to Kattegat – after Jarl Borg, after England. Sometimes the tall mountains had seemed like friends, and sometimes enemies.

‘Yes. But I need to be here. If my brothers are here. If Arya is.’ She put a hand on your chest. ‘I am glad you are with me.’ The blades in her eyes were slowly withdrawing, but the words still seemed to make her sad.

‘All of us or just me?’

She looked to the side, near the floor, for a long time. Thoughts moving through her. ‘Both. I am glad that your – our people are here.’ Her gaze met yours. ‘And I am very glad that you are with me.’

You took her onto the straw pallet. It felt like three summers and winters since you had seen her naked. She had not wanted to have sex with you on the boat, even under the blanket. And before, you could barely lie with her whilst recovering from your wounds. 

She was better than you remembered, as smooth and curved as a piece of whalebone, the light from the smokehole in the roof making a pale gold moon on her belly. You reached underneath her, held her bottom, pressing your forearm up against her. She pushed onto it. A sound like a newborn wolfcub. 

‘I have missed you, _raf refr_.’

Her hands were in your hair, on your beard, in your mouth. A sigh. ‘I have missed you, too.’

The light from the smokehole travelled across her, Hati chasing his moon.

***

It is a land of great rocks and waves that shatter over it. The air is fiercer here, and the map Athelstan holds between his weakened arms flaps like a broken sail. 

‘It could be Tarth,’ he shouts, just over the wind. Each ship has a map, drawn by his hand. Bjørn leans over him, his eyes close to the bark. I try not to think of Ragnar and Rollo and Sansa falling past Aegir’s daughters, their own map drifting to the sea-bed. 

‘Or Dra-gon-stone,’ says Bjørn, pointing. 

Athelstan’s eyes become wide and heavy with his thinking. He looks up. ‘The cold,’ he says to me. ‘I think it is this one.’

A wave heaves us high. I almost lose my balance and he catches my hand. His is very cold. I look at the place by his finger and read the marks written in Sansa’s tongue, a tongue that I am learning slowly.

Ska-gos.

***

In the morning, the head priest is brought to their temple. It is not full of riches like the English churches. A quiet place on this quiet island full of quiet men. Ragnar had lain awake all night in the priest’s cave, listening to the silence behind Floki and Torstein’s snores, silence as heavy as cave-stone.

Floki wanders close to the walls of the temple, dragging a finger along the wood. He eyes the tall painted figures as if they were on the other side of a shield wall, his lip curling.

Ragnar stands over the head priest. ‘What is your name?’

The priest looks at him with eyes of heavy, solid mud. ‘They call me ______ Brother.’

‘It is a word like _older_ ,’ says Sansa, who stands near him, her hands folded in front of her.

Rollo looks at Ragnar. 

Ragnar does not say what he is thinking, which is that to call a leader Older Brother does not make him a powerful man. ‘Your true name?’

‘I left that _______ long ago. Elder Brother is who I am.’

Ragnar tips his head and at the same moment, the fighting priest is brought in by Torstein and some guards. He walks in an angry, jerking way and as if his cloak itches.

‘Sit,’ says Torstein, prodding him in the back with his sword.

The fighting priest half-turns his head, as if he might eat Torstein, but lowers himself onto a bench which faces the table on a raised floor. Looking round at everyone. Looking at Sansa as if he is very tired and very awake all at once.

Ragnar looks up at the tower, its seven flat sides like the hat of a dwarf with a pointy head. He does not want to remember all the new words he has learnt in the last months. He asks the princess to translate. ‘Tell me,’ he says to both of them, a sigh coming out at the same time. ‘Seeing as you are the only ones who will talk. Tell me about your land.’

The fighting priest says two words, hard-sounding, like rocks being struck together.

Sansa raises her eyebrows. ‘He – is reluctant.’

Rollo stands up from a corner, a cup of ale in his hands, and walks over to the fighting priest. ‘Want me to chop that arm off properly? I bet even _your_ bones break easily enough under an axe.’

Sansa says something to the big man, but Ragnar does not think it is Rollo’s words. She speaks quietly, and his jaw becomes stretched. The marks on his face are like boiling blood and curdled milk. 

The Older Brother speaks. 

‘He says that the land is bled dry with war,’ says the princess. ‘But that he spends his days here, and the Quiet Isle is a place for the brothers to escape the darkness of war and dedicate themselves to the Faith of the Seven. Kings and kingmakers are not talked of here.’

‘How convenient,’ Ragnar says, his eyebrows lifting like birds. He walks over to the fighting priest, stares at him. ‘You.’ The man folds his arms, looks up at him with a face that Ragnar has only seen on dogs or wolves before. ‘You will tell me what I want to know. About this land. Who rules. Where the armies are.’

The princess says his words and listens as the man speaks. ‘The – he does not know everything for certain. He has not been in the capital – Kingslanding – for some time.’

‘But who is king? He must know this.’

The man says a word. _Tom-mon_. He and Sansa look at each other and something passes between them, as if the sounds are two stones sinking into a pool. 

‘He is Joffrey’s younger brother,’ she says, still looking at the man. ‘He is just a boy.’

‘Good,’ says Torstein. ‘Boys are not men. Boy-kings can be told what to do.’ There are rumbles of agreement from Earl Hjelmstad and Earl Borgerson.

Bjørn was just a boy when he left with his mother. He came back twice the size, a sapling grown into an oak in just four years. Bjørn.

‘Who is fighting against who?’ asks Ragnar.

Sansa speaks, and listens. ‘He says who is _not_ fighting. Everyone wants power.’ She asks him another question. 

Ragnar hears _Win-ter-fell_. Her northern castle. Not south, where the riches are.

‘It is as I thought,’ she says. ‘Roose Bolton rules the north.’ Her skin has grown paler, the colour she had in the fog. ‘He is a terrible man. He helped kill my mother. My brother.’ 

‘But Kingslanding,’ he says, impatient. ‘How many warriors does the king have? Are they all within the city or are they spread all over the land? What are their defences?’

The man listens, and asks Sansa his own question in sharp words. When she answers him he lets out a loud laugh, which is like the clatter of swords against shields. A gull outside on the tower makes a surprised sound. The man addresses Ragnar, and there is darkness in his amusement, bitter as long-stewed barley.

‘What does he say?’ says Ragnar.

‘He says -’ She looks quickly at Rollo. ‘You do not want to know the exact words. He says that if you think a handful of men who stink of the sea and fight like girls can take on King’s Landing, you must have – shat your brain out of your -’ She eyes Ragnar. ‘You get the idea.’

The Older Brother says some quiet words to the fighting priest, who mutters back, and slides his eyes along to Rollo’s hands, and the cup of ale he holds. Rollo drinks it very quickly and throws the empty cup down.

Sansa speaks on. Ragnar hears a word and remembers that it is the name of her sister. _Arya_. Her voice is soft and it is stretched at once. The man says something, low, and looks at the floor.

‘I would like to ask him something.’ Floki steps away from the wall, like a shadow tearing free. ‘We still have not had it in words.’ He steps close to Sansa. ‘I would like to know if you are who you say you are.’ His hands uncurl. ‘A princess. The Lady of Stark.’

‘Floki,’ says Rollo. ‘You are insulting me as well as my wife.’

‘It is alright.’ Sansa stares at Floki before speaking to the man. 

Ragnar hears her own name. _Sansa Stark_ , and _North_. The Older Brother looks at her in a new way.

The fighting priest takes the breath of one who is dying. He says a word – _ay_ \- and the way he says it makes everyone understand. All is still. A little light shines through the coloured glass of the window onto the cheek of the princess. Blue and gold.

Floki is the first to move. ‘Good,’ he says, his eyebrows lifting like wings. ‘Then it has not all been for nothing.’

***

It is a hard landing. Our ships need three bids to get close to the bay without being speared by tall rocks that the waves wish to guide us towards. Had we enough water, I would have sent our ships onwards, to the great land we hope is beyond the line of sea and sky.

By the time we throw down our anchors, there are men waiting for us. On the small pockets of black sand and scattered up on the rocks like cormorants.

Bjørn sighs. ‘I would have liked to rest before fighting.’

‘Perhaps we will not have to fight,’ I say, though I am not sure I believe it myself. Their swords and axes catch the dull, cold sun.

We half-swim and wade ashore. Mouthfuls of salt. I go more slowly to wait for Earl Olesen. None of us need to talk about what to do. We are Northmen. We know.

A tall man who seems carved from stone is the first to meet us, others gathered behind him. A fearsome people, not far from our own. There are many scars and dark eyes. Clothes that are not fine. There are no women.

I stop a few hands away from him. ‘Athelstan. Tell them we will only be here for a short time. If they could let us have water and shelter for a night, we will be on our way.’

Athelstan is tired, but he speaks with a firm, clear voice, and I remember why I chose to lie with him.

The island man is staring at my son, who stands next to me, his shield in front of him. And he stares at me. One of his eyes looks as if it is covered in ants. He rolls his head to the side, and speaks in a voice that sounds like sea full of sand.

‘He says that there is only one thing that they give to travellers who arrive in ships with shields and swords.’ Athelstan looks at me.

Earl Olesen is breathing low and long next to me, a great horse about to run into battle.

I sigh. One more try. ‘We do not come to fight. Only to rest. We have further to go. This is Ska-gos?’

The man’s lip pulls outwards and he says some words to the man next to him, whose knuckles are red with blood that is not old.

‘What is he saying?’

Athelstan frowns. ‘That you look – I think the word is like ours for good to eat. Tasty.’

Good enough to eat. King Ecbert had said that to me, and whispered of sweetmeats and oysters at the bathhouse. I had sat in his great bed afterwards and demanded some. Nuts covered in honey. That was a different place. I make my face strong.

The man with the stone face has his sword half-raised and is speaking again. The wind makes the hair and grey cloaks of the other men flap like ragged birds. 

Athelstan speaks the man’s words, though I can understand some of them. ‘The winter is just beginning here. You will -’ Athelstan’s eyes become clear, English glass – the sun shining on them for one quick moment before disappearing as he looks at me. ‘He says you will make good food for our cold stores.’

Not good enough to eat. Good to _eat_.

I lift my sword.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Norse Mythology School** :
> 
> The numbers three and nine are most significant in Norse mythology.
> 
>  _Gebo_ ( _gyfu_ in Old Norse) seals contracts and demands that promises are honoured, a gift entails obligation: the obligation to give, the obligation to accept, and the obligation to reciprocate. Gebo requires openess on the part of both parties and promotes deep trust. Because of the sense of obligation arising from gift giving, gebo is intimately connected to oath making – pacts may be sealed using this rune. 
> 
> _Aegir_ and _Ran_ – god and goddess of the sea.
> 
>  _Njörðr_ – also a god of the sea, or seafaring more precisely, as well associated with wealth and fertility.
> 
>  _Lyngbakr_ – a great whale, which disguises itself as an island.
> 
> For anybody who hasn’t (gasp!) read Sansa Washed Ashore first, _raf refr_ is Rollo’s nickname for Sansa. It (sort of) means ‘amber fox’ in Old Norse.
> 
>  **Scandinavian Wildflower Seminar** :  
> It’s not a swimmingfox Vikings fanfic without the odd bit of Nordic flora thrown in. Here’s [Alpine Pearlwort!](http://scandinavianmountains.com/flora-fauna/plants-white/alpine-pearlwort.htm)
> 
> **GoT notes** :
> 
> The cave on the Quiet Isle at the beginning of the chapter is Elder Brother’s residence, Hermit’s Hole. Nice digs, Ragnar!
> 
> The Shivering Sea, which borders north-east Westeros, is extremely rich in sealife, if a bit parky. Hooray!
> 
> The Skagossians indulge in a spot of cannibalism in winter. Boo!
> 
>  **Independent Music Corner** :  
> I listened to black/red metal band Skagos to accompany my writing of the last scene, happened upon purely through researching the island. [Check it here!](https://skagos.bandcamp.com/)


	4. Ragnar Decides Part One, or Lagertha on Skagos

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With thanks to Editor-in-Chief ZoeSong (who is writing her own Rollo/Gisla fic, check it [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4131462)).
> 
> NB Helpfully, there is no Ragnar POV in this chapter... but he IS thinking very hard, over in Elder Brother's digs. :)  
> Sorry to any subscribers to this fic who might be also looking for Chapter 5 - I had a weird formatting issue and accidentally put this chapter up twice. WHOOPS. 
> 
> Second half of this chapter coming very soon!

_Wolf._

_Wolves slide like shadows and she is the wolf and wolves are with her. She knows their shapes now, the sounds of them, their hot, mossy breath. The young dark one. The one that snuffles in tree-roots and will not always follow. And the one as white and as quiet as new snowfall._

_The other female is far away, and yet the smell of this wolf-sister’s blood is almost her own. A taste on her tongue. Something biting, calling_ \- 

Sansa woke, alone.

***

The fight is fast and loud. We fight on the beach and on the sea-cliffs, great shouts from these people and from my own. The island fighters are full of strength but they are not trained well and move in too many different directions at once. They have no shields. We are tired, but we are many hundreds, and we have Northman fire in us. 

I run at a man, force my sword into his side, run at another. Frejya moving through me. Her Valkyries’ war-cries in my ears.

Bjørn fights with shield and sword, shield and axe. Every time I look over, he is sprayed in more blood. My boy of iron. As I lunge forward, I pray to Thor for my son, a prayer like a song that always sings in me, that I know every word to. 

Earl Olesen, his axe held high, calls for men to move wide and they spread like the wings of a great sea-bird. The island men begin to fall.

I call for my shieldmaidens and we make ourselves a wall. These great, stone-heavy men push against us, before we let them come into our shield-embrace. Blows upon them like rain, like arrows.

It is over, and quickly. Heaving breaths are louder than wind, from the standing and the fallen. We have lost some, but not many. 

The man who talked of eating me is on the sand, spitting blood. Two of his fingers lie apart from his hand and he bleeds from a leg. 

I put my boot on his neck. ‘Now,’ I say. ‘You will give us what we asked for all along.’ I put my sword just under his chin, make my voice strong and light at once. ‘Or perhaps we will eat _you_.’

***

You were hungry. It would be time to find one of the priests soon and get them to make more crab stew. But first, there was someone to visit.

You stood at the door to the barn, leaning on the post. He didn’t turn round straightaway, so you kicked the stale heel of bread over to him. 

He half-turned, glanced up at you and looked down again, as if to look at you would make him vomit.

Big Dog, Ragnar had said. He looked like one. One who had not been fed for a very long time, and was both fierce and cowed at once. The horse, a black animal as big as Sleipnir, was his.

You had not seen the like of his burns before. Your uncle had tried to rescue a cow from a burning barn once and his sleeve had melted into his skin, but you had never seen such marks on someone’s face. It must have been a difficult battle, that one. A long recovery. 

The fighter said something, words that too sounded burnt, blackened. He looked at you again, dark eyes, as if he would happily fight were he not tied.

‘You killed men from my village,’ you said, in your tongue. And then, ‘kill my men,’ in his.

Sansa had said that he saved her from men who wanted to rape her. You were not sorry that he did, of course, but why did he? To bring her back to that boy-king who had her beaten?

The Big Dog spat, sniffed and took the bread with his two bound hands, muttered something very quiet. Another sniff, and he looked up at the light past you with one eye shut, as if it hurt. More words, and you heard _girl_ and _bed_ , more than once. Maybe _warm_.

‘You are talking of my wife,’ you said, not caring that he would not understand. 

There was something in his smile that you wanted to cut out with an axe.

You walked forward, took the bread out of his hands, threw it into the corner where he could not reach it, and leaned over him. ‘ _My_ girl,’ you said, knowing that he would understand.

***

We walk with our axes and swords at the backs and necks of the islanders. My heart is a loud drum, and my shoulders and chest ache. My first fight alone, without Ragnar. Although I have two other earls with me. Earl Edman limps, having taken a sword to his calf. Like my son, Olesen does not seem to have been touched – as strong as the ox of his banner. Athelstan has a small cut at his temple.

There is a large house, larger than any I have seen before, high on the hill. Black clouds around it like great ravens. These are the houses that Sansa spoke of, that the great families live in. Though she never talked of this place. It reeks of death. 

There is a river running along grey and black rocks as we walk up, and everyone takes turns to drink. The water is very cold, knife-blades on the back of my throat, between my fingers. I close my eyes, think of Mímisbrunnr. A well of wisdom good enough for Odin is what I need right now. 

Our people camp around the house as some of us walk through the gate. There is a banner of a bare tree above us. I feel strong knowing my son is next to me. I try not to think of the story of Gudrun feeding her own sons to their father in revenge. To eat another human is something for stories. Nothing more.

A man is waiting for us, a little more finely dressed than the fighters on the beach. He says that this is House Stane, and through Athelstan, we carefully walk around each other with words.

‘This is no way to arrive on strange shores, to scatter dead men like beached fish.’

‘It is no way to _greet_ strangers. In our land guests are made welcome. Fed and warmed before any agreement takes place. Not met with weapons and threats.’

‘And what is your land?’ There is the weight of small stones on the last two words.

‘Dane-land. Kattegat.’ 

‘And what do we have to talk about?’

I let Athelstan tell him that we are sailing to West-er-os, and of the fog. That all we seek is shelter for the night.

The man who is called Stane looks at me, and at my son, and at the other earls. ‘I do not think we have a choice.’ 

_No_ , I think and do not say. _You do not_. 

Behind him, other men and women of the island stand, and they feel again like great birds, full of the night-dark sea. Their eyes on us. On our flesh, I wonder. One woman in the corner with a strong, tree-carved face, stares at me from under black eyebrows.

I stand tall. ‘Ask him about Wint-er-fell,’ I say to Athelstan, and watch as the lines on Stane’s forehead gather. He is alert, predator and prey. He speaks and I know what he asks. 

It is a risk. Sansa spoke of many battles in her land. She has many enemies. But her spine would harden, her eyes shine, when she talked of her north. ‘Sansa,’ I say to him. ‘We are for Sansa Stark.’ 

There is the sound of a door scraping on stone, and someone disappearing from the hall. A brown skirt.

Athelstan talks of Sansa’s brothers. And of the brother by another woman. The man Stane looks at us, and nods. 

‘He says that he holds respect for the Night’s Watch. That his own ancestor was a -’ Athelstan’s eyebrows furrow. ‘I do not know the word. Perhaps a leader, or a hunter.’

The man looks at me, and says that if Jon Snow is anywhere, he is there. At the great wall of ice. A big house called Black.

***

Sansa had entered the stables to find the Hound crouched in a corner asleep, hands hanging by the rope attached to the wall. His hair concealed his face. She coughed, once, and the ragged breathing continued. 

A step closer. He would at least be grateful for the water she had brought him. Perhaps she should put a hand on his shoulder. A kick to his foot. She couldn’t call him _Hound_. She never had before, and she wouldn’t now. ‘Sandor.’

His breathing caught. A sniff, and he shook his head enough for a little of his hair to move away from an eye. A dark, angry fleck. ‘What the fuck do you want?’

‘Good afternoon to you, too.’

‘Think I’m going to be all airs and graces, do you? You’ve forgotten a thing or two on your travels.’ He sat up, rubbing the heel of his hand in his eye, before throwing his arm down. ‘And you might have noticed I’m not laid out on a fucking goosefeather bed.’

‘You killed some of our men.’

‘Ay, and I would do it again. A man comes at me with a sword, it’s not going to end with a dance.’

Even here? She still could not fathom how he had ended up on the Quiet Isle, as a brother. He was the very last person that she could ever imagine praying to the Mother. ‘Please. I need you to tell me about Arya.’ 

The Hound’s gaze was unreadable. When she had asked him about Arya in the sept, in front of the others, his face had turned to dark hill and stone. But she had to know. If Arya was alive, and every wolf-hair in her told her so, then she needed to find her. 

He eyed the skin that Sansa had in her hands. ‘Better have wine in there.’

She glanced down at it, and shook her head. ‘I thought that the brothers did not drink – so much.’

A rueful grunt and he ran his tongue over his teeth. ‘Ay, well.’ He gave her a proud, self-hating look. ‘Old habits die hard.’

***

‘It is a dark place.’ Earl Olesen looks about him.

After having us drip seawater in his hall, the man of House Stane has bid us drink in his feast-room. I sit at a long table with Bjørn and the earls and Athelstan. Beer is brought for us and we drink, long and silent and watchful. My chest still hurts a little from the fighting.

I take away the end of my sleeve from Athelstan’s eyebrow, now that the bleeding has stopped. He smiles at me, a smile full of questions but that seems to think I have the answers, too.

It is hard to know what to do. Without Ragnar, who leads here? I am his closest ally. I know him best, how his mind works, supple as a fish in a stream. 

‘I do not trust them,’ says Edman. ‘We should leave, and soon.’ Grit in his voice that is not just the calf-wound.

I keep my voice low. ‘Would you like to sail back, Earl Edman? Into the fog-realm?’ 

He looks sour. ‘Do not make me a coward, Earl Ingstad. I simply ask what our purpose is, if Ragnar’s ship is lost.’

Bjørn leans on his elbows and looks at the table, breathing deeply.

‘This has been a great misdeed,’ Edman says.

Flames spark in my lungs. ‘There was no misdeed,’ I say. ‘Ragnar was not wrong. He chose to believe in the princess, and he was right to. There is a great land here, a land that none of our kinsmen have ever laid eyes upon.’ If they are all dead, I tell myself, then I should honour Ragnar. ‘We will sail onwards. To West-er-os. We will look at this land for ourselves, as we had always planned to.’ 

I wait. Earl Olesen nods. And as Earl Edman does the same, there is something at the edge of my eye. Lithe and long, slipping through the door of the hall and through another one. After it comes a boy, thin and moving quickly. They are both gone before I have even blinked. 

‘Fenrir,’ someone whispers behind me, and I know I am not dreaming. That it is not sea-tiredness.

‘Garmr,’ I hear someone else mutter.

The opposite of Sansa’s little wolf cub. Bigger than any wolf I have ever seen, apart from in the eyes of storytellers over a fire. Ragnar telling our son and our daughter of Geri and Freki, haunting the battlefields of the dead.

‘Lagertha,’ Athelstan says. ‘It is a ________.’ 

The word that means great wolf. The word that Sansa used to talk of her own white wolf.

The boy had moved like a wolf himself. Fire catching in his hair. I hear Floki’s voice shiver through me, the word _Blóðughadda_ – his nickname for Sansa. 

I rise, and my son does the same. ‘No,’ I say to him. ‘Stay here.’

It is a dark corridor, full of shadow-voices, the voices of the dead. I move quietly, listening for the sounds of wolf, and of boy. As I turn a corner, he is there, just out of reach, moving fast.

I run after him. ‘Wait.’ I catch his arm, hold him firm.

A boy with dark-green apple eyes and freckles across his nose. He pulls out a small dagger and I grab it just in time.

‘No.’ I bend down, speak as best I can in their tongue. A soft voice. ‘No. I am friend. A friend.’ 

He doesn’t speak, still gripping the dagger hilt tightly. He is strong, but I am stronger. I squeeze his wrist until his fingers loosen. He takes a breath and I think he is about to speak. Instead, his teeth are on my fingers. Blunt pain.

‘No,’ I say again, fighting him as the sharp bone digs in. And then I know that his wolf is near. Its shadow, Fenrir in all his darkness, and a bubbling rumble like the Hvergelmir, and I feel real fear. 

There is not much time. ‘Sansa,’ I say, and there is another tightening in him, his shoulder turning to stone under my fingers. ‘Sansa,’ I say again. ‘Sister.’ The boy’s teeth come away from my skin, and I try to look at him. There is wolf-breath, somewhere.

And before I can say anything else, he runs.

***

When Sansa returned, she asked the Northmen guards to untie the Hound from the chain on the wall. He was rubbing his wrists and cursing under his breath when she threw him the skin. It landed by his ankle and he looked up.

‘Ale is the best I could do,’ she said.

He took the skin and tugged the cork out with his teeth. A silence as he drank, deeply.

Sansa pulled a small stool up as near as she dared to him. ‘Arya,’ she said.

He gave a small sigh, his bottom lip held in with his teeth. ‘Ay.’ The sun was just starting to fold itself into the stable, a light that shimmered with dust. ‘I -’ Another outbreath. ‘We travelled together,’ he said. ‘For near a year.’

Sansa’s mind went blank, a fresh piece of parchment. She had been expecting him to say that he had glimpsed her somewhere, from a distance. Perhaps from a battlefield, or the ramparts of a castle. ‘The – the two of you?’

‘Ay.’

‘But – why?’ She couldn’t possibly imagine it. Her sister and _him_.

He looked at his ale-skin. ‘The long version will need more than this.’ He drained it. The smell of ale bloomed in the air. ‘She was with the Brotherhood. Know who they are?’

Sansa shook her head. 

‘Pack of fucking twopenny thieves calling themselves noble. Living in the forest, serving their own justice.’ He eyed her. ‘It doesn’t matter. Had your sister with them, before they picked me up. I was -’ a guilty look, tossed her way. ‘I’d let my guard down. Had to fight, they took my money, and – I took her.’ He gazed into the air in front of him. ‘Planned to sell her to your mother.’

Their mother. Just the mention of her was enough to make Sansa’s throat clog up. To make Catelyn’s face, and a faint trace of her voice appear, just out of reach.

‘But -’ he gave her another quick look, not unsympathetic, but not a comfort. ‘Ay, well, we both know how that turned out. Then I thought maybe your aunt, and by the time we got there, she was dead, too.’ 

Aunt Lysa. It meant little. A pinched face, years ago at a feast, a thinner, darker version of her mother.

‘Then we - just wandered. Until the Lannister woman came.’

The Lannister woman. The Hound was making little sense. ‘Do you mean – Cersei?’

He sighed, impatient. ‘No, girl. A – I still don’t fucking know who she was. Said she had sworn to your mother that she’d look after you and your sister, but had Valerian steel sitting in her hand. She was paid by the Lannisters.’

A flash of sunlight. ‘Lady Brienne? Do you mean Brienne, of Tarth?’

‘Ay.’ He stared at her. ‘That was it.’

‘It was true. She said the same to me. At King’s Landing. She came back with Jaime Lannister, and told me she had been with my mother. That she had sworn an oath to her.’

The Hound’s face was unreadable.

‘So – Arya went with her?’ Or he sold Arya to her.

‘No.’ He seemed incredibly heavy suddenly, as if a great force was pulling him down towards the floor. 

Sansa felt a rising frustration. ‘Then – where is she? Where did she go?’

The Hound didn’t seem to be breathing.

‘Was there a fight? Did Arya fight with you?’

When he spoke again, his voice was stretched and sudden. ‘She left me to die, alright?’ A flash of something like pain – and _hurt_ – in his eyes.

‘What do you mean?’

His burns drew together. ‘That bitch-knight fucking knocked me off a cliff. My neck was half rotting anyway, my head bashed in, and then -’ he looked down at his leg as if it was an annoying child he had to take around with him. ‘Bone came right through.’ He stared at her, and Sansa remembered those eyes, wounded and proud and hateful all at once, surrounded by Red Keep stone. ‘Your sister -’ His lip curled up, an incredulous smile. ‘Told her to finish me off. I was dead anyway. I could taste blood all the way up from my stomach. And she didn’t. She left me.’

He seemed more injured by telling her this than by Rollo’s axe-cut. Sansa tried to imagine it, Arya walking away, not looking back. It wasn’t her. Arya had always been quick, mercilessly teasing, but never vicious. ‘She – she didn’t want to kill you.’ How would you kill someone that had looked after you? 

‘She could have killed me. She should have. It would have been mercy. Tried everything I could to rile her. She did it to hurt me.’

‘But -’

‘Look. I spent a bloody long time with her, alright? I would hear her whispering my name at night. Mine, and others. Joffrey, Cersei, Meryn fucking Trant. I know her. Knew her. Mayhaps better than you. People don’t stay the same. Not when all they see is war and death. Looks like something you know a little of.’

Sansa looked at her palms.

The Hound’s voice dropped, almost imperceptibly. ‘You’ve bloody changed, little -’

The unspoken word hung in the air for a moment, and it was as if they both watched it, fluttering, suspended, before it wheeled out on a breath of wind through the open window.

He swallowed. Spat.

‘So have you,’ she said, quietly. ‘How did you come here? You said you were dead.’

‘I was. Last fucking breath, I swear. Stranger’s hands on me. But – the man you spoke to. Who leads this place, as much as it’s led by anyone. He found me, the fuck knows how, got me healed up, slowly. I thought I’d never fucking walk again.’ He gazed into the straw at his feet, lost in his own thoughts. 

It was too much to absorb all at once. That he could have stayed with Arya for so long, when surely it would have been far better for him to travel alone. If he hadn’t, then he wouldn’t have that heavy limp. Or even be here.

‘Sandor.’

He stilled. Looked up at her slowly.

‘Thank you. For keeping Arya safe.’ Sansa thought about putting her hand out to him, and didn’t.

His eyes were a grey sky and a grey sea. A blink, and the blackness returned. ‘Well, don’t let me be near you when you have your happy family reunion. I’ll fucking gut her.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Norse Mythology School** :
> 
>  _Mímisbrunnr_ , which Lagertha mentions, is the well of wisdom underneath the great tree, Yggdrasil. Odin sacrifices an eye to be able to drink from it.
> 
>  _Sleipnir_ , who Rollo compares Stranger to, is Odin’s horse.
> 
> In the sagas, Queen Gudrun is married to Atli, a king responsible for the death of her whole previous family. Much later, she kills her two sons by Atli and feeds them to him in revenge. Nice!
> 
>  _Hvergelmir_ , which Lagertha mentions in reference to the sound of the lurking Shaggydog, is the bubbing, boiling spring of the first and darkest realm, Niflheim. 
> 
> **Special Wolf-themed Mythology Corner** :
> 
>  _Fenrir_ is the great dark wolf who will kill Odin at Ragnarok.
> 
>  _Geri_ and _Freki_ are Odin’s two wolves. 
> 
> _Garmr_ is the wolf who guards Hel – the name is actually derived from the same etymological root as _Geri_.


	5. Ragnar Decides Part Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ta to Editor ZoeSong.

The Older Brother is brought to Ragnar, who is eating bread and honey. Their bees must be very happy ones, for the honey tastes like summer. 

He stands as the priest enters with two guards, and waves a knife at a chair, as if this has always been his little cave-home. ‘Sit.’ He feels energetic, restless. His old self. A sigh and a merry roll of his eyes at the priest as he himself sits down again. When he speaks, it is almost as an afterthought. ‘What are these?’ He points the knife to the little wooden table and the small rolls of paper there, curled like strips of silver birch. Floki had found them in a hidden drawer, underneath many heavy books that smelt of seaweed.

The Older Brother looks at the table calmly. ‘Simple words,’ he says, without apology.

‘From who?’ says Ragnar lightly, Rollo comes in, ducking his head, and Sansa after him, Torstein having gone to fetch them. She glances at the rolls and back at Ragnar, quickly.

‘From a ______ faith,’ the priest says in his smooth, low voice.

Ragnar can understand enough to know he does not tell all the story. ‘No. From men.’ He digs out a bit of wet bread from his teeth. ‘Who brings them?’

‘They are sent with ravens,’ the princess says. ‘These small ones are, anyway.’ 

Ravens. Ragnar tries not to feel a little wonder. Huginn and Muninn do not just work for Odin here. ‘You said that you not know of kings and making-kings here.’ He raises his eyebrows at the Older Brother.

A giggle. Floki sits in a corner, still as a spider.

Sansa translates as the priest speaks. ‘I said that we did not talk of it here. I did not say I did not know of it.’

A man who likes words. Ragnar looks forward to knowing more of them so that he can use them as he uses his axe. ‘Princess,’ he says, and nods to the coils of paper.

She walks over to them, unfurls one and reads in Ragnar’s own tongue. ‘Our king, Joffrey, is dead. Poisoned. Sansa Stark missing, a suspect.’ She looks at Ragnar with eyes full of the sea. ‘I did not kill him. I hated him, but -’ she continues talking, now in her own tongue, to the Older Brother. 

‘I would have killed him a hundred times, and not with poison,’ says Rollo, and she gazes at him for a moment as if no one else is in the cave. ‘Read on,’ he says to her, in a voice once only used for his nephews.

She frowns down at the papers. ‘Talk of great enemies in the north, from Maester Aemon.’ Another. ‘Tom-mon has the crown, but his mother and grandfather hold the throne.’ Another. ‘Stannis marches north. A great army, towards the Wall.’ She takes a deep breath.

Stannis. Sansa had told Ragnar of this one. A man that her father believed should be king.

Sansa reads on. ‘Tywin Lannister is -’ she stops. Stares at the paper.

‘Is what?’ Ragnar says.

When she speaks again, her words are slow, as if rowing through a river thick with mud. ‘Tywin Lannister is dead. Killed by his son, Tyrion. Tyrion is missing.’ She swallows.

The clever dwarf who she was married to. ‘So Kingslanding is ruled by the queen?’

Sansa speaks to the Older Brother for a moment. ‘He says that perhaps not. That the Faith of the Seven is stronger than ever there.’

Ragnar licks honey off his fingers, thinks suddenly of his wife. And of his old wife. Smiles, brightly. ‘And you,’ he says to the priest. ‘You send words to Kingslanding? Of us?’ He had made sure that the priests were all watched so that no one sailed from the island, but he had not thought to look for birds.

‘Not yet.’

‘Well,’ Ragnar wears a friendly face. ‘There is still time to kill you, then.’

The priest folds his fingers together on his lap. ‘If your gods _______ it. But others can send _______ as ______ as I. And I do not send _________ to the queen. Only to the Faith of the Seven.’

Sansa talks to him in a quiet, careful voice, and there are the words _Win-ter-fell_ , and _home_. Ragnar twists on his seat, taps his fingers on his knees. The Older Brother is looking at her and his voice is a low wind through the mountains. ‘What does he say?’ Ragnar asks.

The princess turns to him. ‘He says that I should go home. Take my home. That it is my right.’

***

‘Do you think it is him? The smallest brother?’ I say to Athelstan under my breath, later, in the dark. I lie close to him, and Bjørn is on the other side, a little further away. The Stane man has offered us some shelter in his barns, and many more of us sleep outside in the cold.

‘There is a likeness,’ he says, his face very close. The cool leaf-smell on his skin that I like. ‘Although I did not see him for long.’

Outside, an owl makes a small, round cry. I saw the boy for longer, though there was a wildness in him that Sansa did not have. I remember the first time I saw her, talking with Bjørn, her head dipping very low, as if looking for sand-grubs.

‘And Sansa did talk of wolves. How all of her brothers had them, and her sister.’

The owl again. Or perhaps it is not an owl. I sit up, take my sword. ‘Bjørn.’

He walks behind Athelstan and I. We listen, ears sharp and alive. The wind has many tangled, quiet voices in the ivy and bare branches. I run my finger tips along the wall, the shadow of the big house above us. There. I move quickly, push, hold my sword up at a throat. A sharp inbreath. It is a woman. 

Bjørn stands behind her, takes her arms. 

The woman speaks, a low voice as roughspun as sackcloth. It is the one who I saw in the hall earlier.

‘She asks if this is the way to treat someone who comes quietly, without a sword,’ Athelstan says. 

I reach out, feel her side. Pull out the dagger. She spits, speaks again, words shaped like little bats.

‘Tell her it is better not to lie,’ I say. ‘We will speak to her honestly, or not at all.’

The woman licks her lips, says something up at Bjørn in a different sort of voice, with breath in it. The sort of voice I sometimes use, though never on my son. 

Bjørn looks at me with rabbit-in-torchlight eyes, before hardening his grip on her arms.

The woman speaks more small, dark words. ‘She asks who we are,’ Athelstan says. ‘Really. That we are not – wild, I think.’

‘You know what to say.’ I let him tell her, his words sure and smooth. I envy how quickly he has learned Sansa’s tongue, though he began it three seasons ago. I hear _North_ , and _Sansa_ , and _wolf_. And the boy’s name. _Rickon_.

‘She says it is not as safe as she had hoped here. Not the way a -’ he says a word in her tongue. ‘I think it is like earl. Or lord. It is not the way an earl should grow up.’

I step closer to her, keep my voice very low. ‘We will look after him. Both of you. Until we find Sansa.’ Even as I say her name, a sadness takes hold. She may be dead. Ragnar may be dead. 

The woman’s breath smells of something I cannot place. A root, or a herb. 

‘She says that you should leave before the day starts. Not to trust them. There is darkness here, and hunger.’

I am close enough to see the edges of her eyes, white as cabbage-leaf. I nod, knowing the hunger that she means. ‘Let her go.’

She looks up at my son as he releases her, almost as if she did not mind being in his grip. A grin of black and white teeth, and she disappears, the litheness of a rat, the silent wing-beat of an owl.

***

Sansa and Rollo sit opposite Ragnar. Maps, drawn by her and by Athelstan are spread on the table. Ragnar looks at how close they are to Kingslanding – just a beckoning finger of land between them. And he looks at how far away Wint-er-fell is. The jagged teeth all the way along the east coast to a river called White Knife. 

The princess is staring at him, eyes that ask and ask, yet do not give. Floki sits next to Ragnar, Earl Borgerson and Earl Hjelmstad next to him. Ragnar feels tired again.

‘I think we should go north, brother,’ says Rollo.

Ragnar lets the words hit each other on the way out. ‘Of course you do.’

‘Elder Brother supports my claim to the North,’ says Sansa. ‘I don’t think he will betray us to the capital.’

Betrayal. Horik, and Jarl Borg, and his own brother, who sits now as if he never fought him. His eyes all mud-heavy with love for this girl. Everyone betrays. ‘Tell me why we should not go to Kingslanding now,’ Ragnar says. ‘When a boy sits on the throne and his mother has become weak?’

Sansa folds her arms. ‘You heard what - Sandor said. We do not have enough men.’

‘She is right,’ says Floki, his words little flame-flickers. ‘We sailed with over one thousand men. We have only two hundred. It is not enough to take a city as large as everyone says this is.’

‘We have no friends in the south,’ Sansa says. ‘If we go north, to Stannis -’

‘- the man who wants to be king -’

She sighs. ‘If we go north, and gather bannermen from the northern houses, we may have a chance of taking back Win-ter-fell.’

‘We have heard stories of your allies in England, King Ragnar,’ says Earl Hjelmstad. ‘It is from you we learnt that men must stand alongside others to become great.’

‘And if I can take back the North, then -’ Sansa takes a deep, strong breath. ‘You all have the North with me. I give you my word. And that makes us stronger.’ 

Rollo is looking at her as if all of his body has gone to wet earth.

Ragnar wishes he was at home, with his sons on his belly, and his wife bringing him a bowl of porridge. He never wants to fight for another man ever again. He sighs into his mead, thinking of the games played with Torstein over the winter months. Once there was a game that lasted almost a whole season, from Gormánuður to Thorri. The barley-ale they both had to drink almost killed them. ‘Very well,’ he says, widening his eyes. ‘We will do what you suggest.’ A small shrug. ‘And perhaps we will not all be killed.’

The princess’s gaze is cornflowers in snow. She does not thank her brother-in-law, her king, but takes his words as if they were an offering and she an earl. Ragnar thinks back to the half-drowned girl who Siggy looked after, and wishes a little that he had not allowed her to grow into this new person. 

‘One thing,’ he says. ‘These maps are not enough. How will we know where we are going? You said yourself you do not know all this land.’

Sansa sits up a little straighter. ‘I think I know,’ she says.

***

We leave at first light, a great silent army, Skadi spreading her shadows over us. Some of our men have taken bread and wine from the stores, and have slit throats to do so.

‘Mother, look.’ Bjørn is whispering to me.

A long, low darkness weaves through us as if night through trees. A vǫrðr. There are quiet breaths from the men.

‘It is the wolf,’ my son says in wonder, and I look about me for other shapes I do not know amongst our people. There. A woman. And next to her, a smaller figure, thin and fast. They walk with us down the hill, and I feel something solid grow inside me, dense and warm.

There are little stuttering cries coming from our left as we near our boats. I think it is unhappy children until I see them on the edge of the hill. Bigger than ours, much bigger, with fine white coats as pure as dawn snow. And their horns - 

We look at them as we keep walking.

I catch Athelstan’s eye. ‘You are thinking the same as I.’

A tiny line appears at the corner of his mouth, as small as an eyelash. It is the nearest he has come to a smile since being on this island. 

***

Sansa rose from her bed and from the warmth of Rollo, who had wrapped himself around her, his nose in her hair. Even if there was a long winter ahead of them all, she was sure that she would never truly feel the cold, as long as she was near to him. 

The windmill’s sails gave a thin bone-creak as they turned in the slow wind. She walked over the pebbled path, through the apple trees and to the stable, as the light stirred itself in. Asking the men to step outside, she held the candle up to The Hound. 

He was huddled in his robes, but sat up as he became aware of her, sniffing and pushing his cowled hood away. ‘Reckon it’s warmer wherever you’re sleeping.’

Sansa felt a flint-strike of anger at his disrespectfulness. She didn’t even believe it, not after everything he’d told her about Arya. But this was something she would have to learn, and not just with him. She had to know how to talk to everyone. To Ragnar, to Elder Brother, to the Boltons, should they be able to talk and not fight. To bannermen. Everyone needed a different approach, the way Rollo might hunt different animals in the forest. Turning himself into a tree for a deer. Tracking a hare. Her words needed to be arrows, sanded and rubbed to shining points.

‘That yours?’ 

Sansa glanced down at her ankles, where Ylva was standing, her legs straight, her short tail high and quivering, staring at the Hound. She had followed her. ‘Yes.’

‘Missed the other one, did you?’ His eyes were a challenge.

She stared back. ‘Yes.’ _He_ hadn’t killed her. And nor had her father. Cersei had. She blinked the memory of Lady away. She was hunting a deer. Hunting a hare. ‘How is your wound?’ 

He looked at the wall. ‘Had worse gnat-bites.’

‘Are you hungry?’ 

‘What do you think?’

‘I’ll make sure you have some food. And water. Or whatever else you want to drink.’

He scowled. ‘What are you doing here?’ A voice strung tight with fury and tiredness.

‘I need to talk to you.’

He shook his head impatiently. ‘Not now – in _Westeros_. Why the fuck did you come back? If you were so damned safe with your new _friends_.’ The last word heavy with disdain.

She kept her voice calm. ‘I didn’t want to. It was Ragnar that did for a long time. He – likes new places. But then -’ she remembered that day on the beach, when the moon had travelled across the sun. ‘I sensed my family. Bran and Rickon. Arya.’ She could not imagine revealing her wolf-state to him. It would be like removing her clothes, or shrieking loud tears. ‘I felt them. And I knew that if they were alive, I could be strong. I could come with these people – _my_ people, now – and take what is mine. What is ours by right.’

‘Then what the hells are you still doing here? You’re rested enough.’

She folded her hands, and then made herself place them by her sides instead, the way Lagertha would have done. ‘We want you to come with us.’

He stared at her, an angry, incredulous grin, his tongue half-curled out. ‘Looks like you’ve got all the help you need.’

If it was a barb at Rollo, she ignored it. ‘You know the land. You’ve fought all over it, travelled to Winterfell. You know it far better than I.’ She glanced at his bindings. ‘You would travel as a free man, of course. No ropes or chains. And no allegiance to anyone.’

Ylva suddenly ran at the Hound’s ankles. He withdrew his legs very quickly under his cowl, and eyed her warily. The little wolf gave a twine-thin yowl.

‘Why should I help a bunch of seaweed-stinking cunts?’ He sniffed and looked up at Sansa again. ‘There are enough fucking kings. Didn’t I tell you how many bodies we counted, coming through the country?’

Without saying her name, Sansa knew he meant Arya. And it only reminded her that he did want to help, however much he tried to pretend not to. He had kept her safe, even if it sounded like everything had gone wrong with Lady Brienne. But she didn’t blame him for that. He had not trusted anyone, not enough. She crouched down, put her hand in the straw, looked up at him. ‘You want to stay. In peace.’ She softened her voice to match the dust in the air. ‘I do understand.’ Ylva came back to her, a quick flick of her tongue on her knuckles, the dry leather of her lips.

He didn’t say anything. 

‘If that’s better for you, then -’ she sighed. ‘Of course. You should stay. Where it is quiet. Where you can heal properly and speak to the gods. Be at one with your faith.’

A small snarl-twitch that he tried to conceal. 

Sansa played her final cyvasse piece. Her hnefatafl piece. ‘You once asked me if I wanted go home.’ She stood up, met those eyes again, wounded, furious and questioning all at once. Hunting a Hound. ‘I want to go home now.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks always to the commenters, who fuel and enthuse me!
> 
>  **Norse Mythology School**  
>     
>  _Huginn_ and _Muginn_ are Odin’s ravens, who fly out all over the world and bring him back information.
> 
>  _Skadi_ is the goddess-giant of winter, but also perhaps shadow – her name possibly comes from another Germanic root preserved in the Gothic word _skadus_ and the Old English _sceadu_ , both of which mean shadow.'
> 
> A _vǫrðr_ is a warden spirit, believed to follow the soul from birth to death. The English word _wraith_ comes from this Norse word.
> 
>  **Norse Calendar Lectures** :  
> The Norse had a different calendar to ours, based around the phases of the moon, the farming year, and the gods. _Gormánuðu_ , or Slaughtering month, is mid-October to November. _Thorri_ , which means ‘unknown,’ is mid-January to mid-February.


	6. Ragnar Sails Again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With big thanks to DragonLadysRevenge for a plot point in this chapter and of course ZoeSong for editing and for Extreme Services to Plot.
> 
> NB Rickon is about ten in this fic.

The sky is clear. One cloud is like a sail, high up, but otherwise everything is blue and almost as cold as the frost-month. Ragnar’s own sails bend like a girl’s skirts and he looks out, waiting for darkness to sweep in, but no fog comes. Only this land to his left as his ship, and those of Earl Borgerson and Earl Hjelmstad, move swiftly out to sea.

They have left the water that they call the Bay of Crabs and are heading north. The way everyone, even Floki, thinks they should sail. The fighting priest is with them, standing on deck. It is not the first time Ragnar has worked with someone who has killed his own men.

Warrior to warrior. That is the agreement he made.

When Sansa had brought the Big Dog to the temple, Ragnar had paced around him in a circle. ‘Why would he want to help us?’

‘He says he has had enough of not talking and not drinking and - not fighting.’

Ragnar had put his hands out, stirred surprise into his voice. ‘A man after my own heart. And he knows the land?’

‘He does.’ The Big Dog had spoken more short, blunt words to Sansa. ‘He says it is with one condition.’

‘And what is that?’

‘That Elder Brother and the other men here are not harmed. That you will leave them in safety. And in return, they will not speak of what has happened here.’

‘Has he spoken to the Older Brother about this?’ The man had been chained up with guards all these days. Unless the calm head priest had stolen in somehow one night. Soft words in the darkness.

The Big Dog had stared at the coloured glass window in the temple, and said no. 

Ragnar looks at him now, standing on the deck. He is very different in armour, like he is wearing shields. A fearsome hunting dog. For all his talk of fighting and drinking, he can see that there is something strong in this man. But not just strong in his body, he thinks, as he watches the man stare back at the island that was almost as silent as Víðarr. Part of him is a priest, with their Mother and Father and Girl and Old Woman and the others all upon his back. 

It is right not to have killed the holy men, he thinks. Athelstan would be pleased. It is right to have made this agreement with the Big Dog. Ragnar looks carefully at Sansa, who talks to Floki and Rollo, her flame-hair flying in the wind. The princess he tells himself he is not following. He will do this, take Win-ter-fell, and then he will raid Kingslanding.

Warrior to warrior. The Big Dog makes Ragnar think of another warrior, one who cannot be touched by sword or axe, who dances through them as swiftly as Hoenir. Danced through them.

Ragnar’s heart is heavy with the loss of his son. He has four others whom he would die for, but you cannot replace a first-born. He regrets the four years of him that he missed, the years in which he became a man. Ragnar remembers different moments as he blinks. Sleeping beside him in the ferns on the way to his first Thing at Kattegat. Blink. Teaching him to catch a fish with a line for the first time, and the yelps as he tried to keep it in his hand. Blink. Listening to him telling Gyda, sweet Gyda, the story that he had only heard himself the day before as if he had known it since his cradle. 

He thinks of Lagertha, and he thinks of Athelstan. But most of all, he thinks of Bjørn.

***

‘Mother! Out there.’

If I thought it would be easy after leaving that dark, cold island where they talked of eating human flesh, then I was wrong. Aegir had blessed us with flat water as we left and we rowed hard to move around the ridged shores of Ska-gos, shores like broken teeth. 

But now Bjørn, who has eyes like an owl at night, points, and I look out to see ships ahead of us. Four of them, with tall blue clouds behind their sails. I do not expect that they have been sent to welcome us. It does not seem to be the way of this land. 

‘Take him there,’ I say to the woman in the brown dress, whose name is Osha, pointing downwards. ‘Not safe here.’ The boy who is Sansa’s brother is standing with his hands on the edge of the boat, looking around him. He wears a small fur we have found for him, and he has not spoken yet. His great dark wolf is tied to a post at the lower end of the boat, and no oarsman will sit near it. 

‘Not _____ safe anywhere,’ Osha says quietly, putting her hands on the boy’s shoulders and turning him around.

I look at my fingers. The knuckles are raw and pink. It is so strange to come from summer to this icy sea. I hope they have large fires on West-er-os.

‘Look. Lagertha.’ Athelstan is at my side, staring outwards. 

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘They must be from the place on the map. How do you say this word?’

He glances down. ‘East-watch. But look beyond them.’

I had not looked further than the small, dark shapes coming towards us. But now I look more closely at the tower-clouds behind them and see that they are not clouds at all. That the white-blue stretching up in to the sky, so high that I cannot see its end, is the great ice-wall itself. I take a breath as deep as this sea, and, just for a moment, I find Athelstan’s hand, before the fighting that I know will come.

***

Westeros. Her land. From the other side of this wide, darkly-magic sea, Sansa had thought of it only as a prison. A place of death, of loss. But now, there was hope. Arya was alive, somewhere – though the Hound had said he did not know where she had gone. He had not known anything of Rickon or Bran either, but if her wolf-dreams had been right about her sister, then she was right about them too. Robb was dead. But Bran and Rickon were alive. Somewhere. And Jon, so far north. Sometimes Ghost was in her dreams, too.

Sansa let her eyes follow the uneven shape of the land, drawn as a child might with their first quill. With the sun facing her so brightly, the land was black and giving little away, but she knew what those distant mountains must be. Her own maps, drawn with Athelstan’s help, told her so. The Vale of Arryn. If the storm had not come, if the gods – whichever ones they were – had not seen to wash her up in Kattegat, she might be there now. With Petyr Baelish, hiding from Cersei’s fury. It was so hard to know what might have happened. But, looking over at Rollo, who was flinging a rope so that it curled over the lowest mast-yard, one side of him stretched and twisting, she thanked those gods. All of them.

She glanced over her other shoulder and found the Hound eyeing the sword that hung at her hip. Her wedding sword, given to her by Rollo. She had been running her thumb over the birch and bone hilt without even realising. 

‘You can use that, can you?’ he said.

‘Yes.’ She tried to look convincing. ‘I’m training, anyway.’

He looked out to sea. In his armour, he was nearer to the Hound she knew again. Except that the heavy, scraped sadness she had sensed on the Quiet Isle was still there. ‘Why do all you bloody women want to fight?’

‘You always told me I should fight back. Have you changed your mind?’ She eyed his leg, wondering which woman he was really thinking about it.

He opened his mouth and shut it again. 

She felt petulant. ‘I _have_ killed someone.’

A small jerk of the head that he tried to conceal with a bored expression. ‘Oh, ay.’

Sansa straightened and looked at him defiantly. ‘A man, almost as tall as you. He was trying to kill Rollo.’ She didn’t say that Rollo had been drunk and a little weakened. ‘The day before our wedding. I cut his throat.’

He stared out to sea again as a pair of terns streaked past, the black swipes on their heads making her think of Floki. ‘Then you’re more like your sister than I thought.’

What did that mean? ‘She’s – killed someone?’

‘Killed her first man with a dagger. In the neck. _My_ dagger.’

Her first man. Sansa felt a lump of hard, dense mud in her stomach. Part-pride, and part-alarm. She wanted to blame the Hound for having lost her, but – Arya sounded like she had become her own person. ‘More than one?’ She tried to sound casual.

‘Ay. She helped at an inn, once. Might have had trouble, were it not for her sticking her little needle in a man or two. She’s got a taste for it, that’s for sure.’ 

The smear of disdain in his voice made her smart. ‘Good,’ she said, looking out to sea, keeping her voice level. ‘Maybe _I’ll_ save you, too, some day.’ 

He looked over quickly, narrowing his eyes at her, or rather at her hair – Keira, one of the shieldmaidens, had rebraided it for her, making Sansa feel stronger immediately. More like Lagertha. Better for sailing into White Harbour.

‘Do not look at her like that.’ Rollo was standing behind them, his arms folded. How long had he been there?

The Hound glanced at him. ‘What’s he saying?’

Sansa took a deep breath. ‘Nothing. Excuse me.’ She walked over to her husband. ‘Are you well?’

It was another moment before Rollo took his eyes off the Hound, who was glaring back. ‘Yes.’ He looked down at her. ‘Yes, shieldmaiden. Now that we are moving again. And have enough food to eat. Though if I had not had to fight on that island, it would have been better for my wound.’ The words thrust into the air in front of her as he glanced darkly back over her head. Sansa turned so that her back was against his chest and Rollo put his arms around her, an embrace that was warm with his furs and his own body heat. ‘Now we just need to pray to Hel not to send more of her fog.’ Warm, furred words in her ear.

‘There won’t be any more,’ she said, surprised at her own sureness, watching the Hound walk away and sit heavily down. But the land had clarity now, a sharpness in the cliffs and hills to their left, and she knew there was a path for them through it. Towards Winterfell. 

***

There is hail, hard and hurting, thrown from fists. Wind, snarling. Snær is unhappy. 

Even though there are only four boats, they bring anger, not open arms. Arrows are fired at us, though they fall short, or our shields catch them in their teeth. We loose our own hail-showers of arrows and do not let them get close. It is as if the other is waiting to see who will come nearer first. I do not want to lose men or women, but if we cannot board one of their boats, we cannot beat them.

‘We must turn the boats,’ says a man near me. ‘Bring them side on.’ 

Yes. A better aim for our arrowmen. 

‘Turn!’ I shout with all my lungs to my men, who are heaving the oars. ‘This side!’ I stand, drenched in sea and ice-rain, hold my sword high. Arrows come again, and this time a man falls in front of me. We must move quickly. On their own boats, men are running, shouting. I see flame-arrows lit but they go out before they can be fired at us. I must not think of us drowning. Of my son drowning. We get nearer. Frejya, hear me.

‘Planks!’ The long planks meant for landing are made tall, and I watch them lean over until they hit the side of the boat. One of our men falls as he runs over it. A yelp as he hits his head on the side of the plank, disappears into the water. I climb up, run over it, do not look at the water below. The slant leads me on and I jump into the enemy ship, where we are already fighting.

They all wear black, and look thin but used to battle. Everything moves fast, a blur of weapons and hail. ‘Do not kill them!’ I shout, even as a man runs towards me. I stab him in the side, dodge a passing blade just in time, look for my son.

Bjørn has an axe at the neck of a tall man, with a pox-flecked face and a flat nose. Another man shouts when he sees, and the fighting slows, stops. Weapons are lowered. Good.

‘Earl Ingstad!’ Earl Olesen’s voice, on his own boat, is almost lost in the wind. 

The tall man spits something I do not understand and wrestles in Bjørn’s grip a little, but not enough. They know that we are too many.

I am freezing. My words come out like broken ice and hail. ‘You will not win this one,’ I say slowly, words I had spoken back to Athelstan before the ships had come too close, words I had said over and over in my head. The man’s eyes become the last candle–flame of the night. A small nod.

Earl Olesen calls again. I run up to the planks and see his arms move, his axe, but cannot hear him anymore. I look to where he is pointing his blade and a little stone attacks my heart.

There are more boats, to the north. Many more. And they come this way. 

***

You found Ragnar hanging onto a straight rope with both hands, his chin leaning on it, staring out to sea. 

‘What are you thinking, brother?’

He did one of his unhappy smiles, small and quick, before his face smoothed again. ‘I am thinking how much colder it is getting.’ It was true that with each _vika_ , the air had become tighter and more like winter.

You sighed. ‘You always knew that Sansa would want to take her own great house back.’

‘I always knew that I wanted to find new land.’

‘Then look,’ you said, turning round so that you leant on the side of the boat beside him, facing the other way. ‘Lands that none of our people have ever seen.’ You had passed points of land, narrow-wedged cliffs that Sansa had said were called the Fingers, kissing the tips of yours as she did so, one kiss for each piece of land, whilst you tried not to think of eating all of her up.

Right now, she was giving out bread to oarsmen, kneeling down to them and telling them the word in her own tongue. You enjoyed seeing her move amongst the others, one of them and yet not. A shieldmaiden-in-training and yet a foreign princess. And yours. 

Ragnar half-glanced behind him, eyes a duller colour of the sea, as if the land was of no interest, and stared back at the water.

You shook your head. He would never be happy unless he was telling everyone what to do. No one else. And then you remembered that he might not just be thinking of that, as he kept gazing at the line of sea and sky, straight as a sword blade. ‘They might not be dead, brother.’

Ragnar pulled his lip in with his teeth, looked at you slowly, and shrugged. ‘They are dead. Was this what the gods wanted? To spill them into the sea?’

‘We do not know everything the gods want. But the seer gave no hint of this.’ You would not believe that your nephew was dead. It could not be so. 

Raised voices at the other end of the boat, amongst the creak of the masts. Your _raf refr_ was standing between Floki and the Big Dog. 

Floki saw you coming. ‘Rollo. This burned cur-dog is insulting my ships.’

Sansa was sighing and talking quickly to the Big Dog, who had an ash-dark smile on the side of his face.

‘Tell him,’ Floki said to her, leaning forward, an adder rising up from leaves. ‘Tell him that these are the greatest boats that our people have ever seen.’ 

The Big Dog said something, waving a finger towards Floki’s face. 

Sansa folded her arms as Torstein came to listen.

‘Do not hide his words from me, Blóðughadda,’ said Floki. ‘I will hear what he has to say before I slice his tongue into tiny pieces.’

‘He wants to know why you have – decoration on your face.’ You are sure that is not quite what the fighter had said.

Floki giggled behind closed lips. ‘The priest wears metal as thick as feast-plates on his chest. I wear black on my eyes.’ His finger became a brush, dancing in the air. ‘Perhaps I will put some on him in the night. I think they will sit very nicely right here.’ He drew curving lines in front of the Big Dog’s scars.

The Big Dog leaned back, worry on his face, as if Floki would poison him just by being near him.

You and Torstein laughed. 

‘Tell him,’ Floki said, sweeping his whole hand in front of Sansa. 

‘I think I have better things to do,’ she said. ‘I will teach you my tongue when you would like some words that will be useful.’ You all watched as she walked away, and you tried to remember the words for _walk_ and _red_ and _fire_ and _arse_.

‘What is more useful than an insult?’ Floki said, light as fly-wings, before hissing, just a little, at the Big Dog.

***

The boats come closer.

I decide to take no chances, and call to the men. ‘Tie the furthest ships together.’ They shout to the other boats, and slowly they move together, like oxen meeting at the shoulder. Ropes are thrown between them, until they are one long bridge of boats. A wall. 

On our boat, my people hold weapons to the throats of the men who wear black. Enough of us have come over from our boats onto this one, and the man who Bjørn holds has called for the other boats to stop firing. He stares at me, his cheek like raked mud, and I at him.

The sky howls. Day has become night.

We all wait. My skin has turned to wet, cold leather under my clothes. No one on this boat speaks. The hail stops as quickly as it started, and a strange silence takes its place. Clouds of breath, and one man, who holds onto an arrow in his leg, panting. Another, blood bubbling at his side.

The boats come closer, and I see that some of their sails are in shreds. They do not look like warships. ‘Hold,’ I shout, and I hear the call pass down from man to man, ship to ship, an echo of my command. A stone, skipping.

Men stand at the side of these northcoming boats, dark lines watching us. Behind the large ships, smaller ones the size of our fishing boats are pulled along on ropes. And – a caught bird in my throat. Something I had thought was a second mast on a large boat that is very low in the water, and is not. It is a man, almost as tall as Yggdrasil. It is a jötunn.

‘Bjørn,’ I say in a whisper, my battle-voice lost. He is staring, too.

Our people wait, shields on arms, axes ready. But no arrows come. I see that there are women and children on one boat. A man, standing at the prow, shouts, and the pox-faced man who is under guard looks at me, and shouts back. 

Athelstan is still on our boat. I do not hear the words quickly enough. _Who_ , and _no_ , and _fight_. I do not feel in command.

It is as if we are standing on the blade-edge of a sword over this sea, and that a word might tip us all into Aegir’s hands. I push past the black men to go to the same side, to see this man who shouts. A man with a pale face and dark, curled hair, the colour of the darkest wet earth. He is young, but seems to be a leader. He holds a great sword, longer than I have ever seen. 

‘We not want fight,’ I shout, and hold my arm up, my sword straight, to keep our arrowmen from firing. Baldr, hear me.

All our boats wait. Bows strung taut.

There is a howl from my boat behind me, and I see the young man’s head jerk, his eyes widen. A flicker of white in the corner of my eye, white that I had thought to be snow. Behind the man, on his own boat, stands a white wolf, pulling hard at its leash, arching up as if to make its own moon-howl into the sky, but not uttering a sound.

***

Ragnar calls the princess and the Big Dog to him. ‘Now?’ he says. 'We turn?’

Sansa speaks to the tall, burnt man, showing him her map. Ragnar thinks a little of Hermóðr, riding Sleipnir into Hel.The Big Dog had seemed very sorry to leave his great black horse on the island. Now he looks up, eyes travelling the land and the horizon, and nods.

Ragnar shouts to the oarsmen and holds onto a rope, letting the weight of his body follow the curl of the ship. He watches the other ships do the same, like the movement of elk or bird-flocks. They have passed the land called Fingers and will now make their way into a long inlet, past a group of islands called the Three Sisters. Ragnar lets his mind drift off to an old memory, girls he knew before he met Lagertha, girls who lived two farms away. He and Rollo would talk of who was the prettiest, of who would have who, until Ragnar sneaked off one night and had all three at once. Rollo had not spoken to him for a week.

‘Ragnar, I was thinking -’

His mind twig-snaps back. ‘Why do you not call me king anymore?’

Sansa’s eyes turn a slightly darker shade of blue. Guilt. ‘I am sorry. King Ragnar, I was thinking that we should make a banner. A wolf banner.’ As she speaks, her own little wolf has found its way around her ankles, and she picks it up.

Ragnar looks up at his raven, which flaps slowly. ‘What is wrong with our own?’

‘They will not know it. The wolf means the Starks. My family. So that when we sail into White Harbour -’

‘How will you make this banner?’

‘I asked the brothers on the Quiet Isle for material and thread. I have it wrapped up.’ She nods to another part of the boat.

Ragnar breathes in slowly and eyes the Big Dog. ‘Ask him what he knows of this place.’

She does, and translates, as the fighting priest still talks. ‘He says it is not known whether Lord Manderly has pledged to the Boltons or not. Elder Brother had no recent messages. So either he’ll welcome us with open arms, or he’ll -’ she stopped, and glared at the Big Dog.

‘He will what?’ Ragnar steps towards Sansa. Her mouth grows tight. ‘Princess.’ He makes his word a blade, leaning down to her ear, and the Big Dog gives him an odd look. The little wolf makes a small, growling sound, like three gnats.

Sansa sighs. ‘Or welcome us with swords and hang us all up by our necks along the harbour.’

Ragnar looks up at the Big Dog, at this man whose own words are like craggy rocks hurled at everyone’s head. He grinned. ‘I like this one. He is honest.’ He turns back to his favourite rope, and tucks his chin over it. ‘No banner,’ he says, as if he is dreaming. ‘We will do it my way.’

***

It is like a dream, this wall of ice. It is as high as the mountains behind Kattegat, and yet made by men. As we sail into the bay, I look up at it, and feel its strength and its coldness, a coldness that sticks in my throat. There is a great house of wood and stone at the foot of it, with its own walls to hold off the fierce sea. Behind it, dark forests that make me think of our own. What I cannot understand is all its snow and ice, when we left our own lands in summer.

There are many ships to dock, and the bay is small. I send some of our ships a little further south, and sail with the boat we captured. Everyone’s weapons are held half in the air, not yet trusting. 

The ships that have come from the north are full of men and women and children with dark eyes and ragged clothes. They look much like our own people. Yet among them are more men like those who first tried to attack us on the four ships, strong, thin men in black clothes. I understand, I think, who these are, from remembering what Sansa has told me. They guard this wall. 

The young man with the black hair and black clothes is waiting for me on the shore, his white wolf beside him. He looks like a raven who has shaken his wings after rain. I see that he is wounded in his side. A little blood flecked on his lip, and a tear in the side of his leather coat. He speaks to the pox-faced man from our captured boat, and walks up to me. A question. The word _fight_. He sounds very tired. 

‘Jon Snow?’ I say. ‘Sansa - brother?’

Everything about him is dark. His eyes become very deep hollows and he watches me as if I might draw my sword against him. ‘Sansa?' he says. ' ____ you?’ 

‘No,’ I say. ‘A boat.’ _On another boat. Perhaps lost_. I turn to look for Athelstan, before facing him again. Another man, with red hair and a thick beard, has joined him. He has eyes as wild as this sea. I put my hand on my chest, tried to show him that I speak true. ‘Sansa. Friend.’

The ground makes a low, pounding sound. Behind him, the jötunn steps out of the sea. All of our men and women, arriving, watch it. What realm is this, that a jötunn walks among them? Perhaps north of the wall is Jötunheimr, and the wall Gastropnir? And which god is this young man, who does not seem to even notice him? There are snow-kings in our stories – one my mother used to tell me at night, when the fire was low.

I see Athelstan push through some of the tired people, and our own, who are standing on rocks and hard, frosted earth, waiting. ‘Athelstan,’ I say. ‘Please tell him who we are. This is Jon Snow.’

Athelstan glances at me with surprise before addressing the man, and I thank Odin that he is here, taking Sansa’s words and making them his own. They look very alike, these two, with their bone-white, serious faces and black hair. And as I hear the word _Rickon_ , there is movement behind me, and the boy’s great wolf, the son of Fenrir, is there in front of Jon Snow’s white wolf. 

A low growl and sniff from the dark one as he circles the other. The white one does not make a sound. He is snowfall itself. They curl around as if one great beast, a circle of sinew and heat, tails next to heads. And the dark, scruffy wolf puts its nose into the neck of the other, and licks its lips.

Jon Snow looks at me, all questions, and then past me, and his face becomes that of both child and man. ‘Rickon?’ he says, his voice more gentle, as if placed carefully in an upturned palm.

The boy and his watchful woman are behind me. Her hand is on his shoulder. The boy has his face slightly turned away, but his eyes slide over to Jon Snow. His brother, by the same father. 

Jon Snow walks past me, as if he has forgotten everything around him, all the ships and these people he seemed to have brought from another realm. He kneels down, so that Rickon is taller than him, and places a hand on his arm. They stare at each other, and I feel a pain, to think of family being slowly brought together, wool twisted around fingers to make something twined, strong. Nothing is said. Osha places her other hand on Rickon’s shoulder, leans down, and says something very softly, owl wingbeats in the dark. 

Jon Snow turns back to look at me and speaks four words, words carefully-shaped, but words that I know to be honest ones. 

Athelstan translates. ‘You are welcome here.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Norse Mythology School** :
> 
> Ragnar mentions the frost-month, aka _frermánuðr_ , also known as _Ylir_ , or _Jul_ ; it is November 14th to December 13th.
> 
>  _Aegir_ – the sea-god
> 
>  _Víðarr_ – the ‘silent’ god, and a son of Odin, foretold to avenge his father’s death at Ragnarok
> 
>  _Hoenir_ – the swift god, long-legged, and often seen to be an extension of Odin himself
> 
>  _Snær_ – the god of snow and ice (chucking hail at Lagertha’s crew like a bad boy)
> 
>  _Yggdrasil_ – the great tree of life, the World-Tree
> 
>  _Hermóðr_ , who Ragnar likens Sandor to, is one of the Aesir who agrees to ride into Hel on Sleipnir, Odin’s great black horse, to offer a ransom in exchange for Baldr’s return to Asgard
> 
>  _Jötunn_ – a giant;’ _Jötunnheimer_ is the giant-realm. _Gastropnir_ is a wall built around a castle in Menglöð, in Jötunnheimer 
> 
> _Baldr_ – god of many things, including peace
> 
> I was mildly influenced by a boat-battle described in one of the sagas – the _Battle of Hjörungavágr_ , which includes tying ships together to keep the line, arrows fired very close, and a hailstorm.
> 
>  **School of Old Norse** :
> 
>  _Kurr_ means ‘grumbling’ in Old Norse. This led to the Old-English ‘cur-dog,’ which means a mongrel; or indeed a detestable person. ALSO KNOWN AS SANDOR CLEGANE, at least in Floki’s eyes.  
>  **  
> **  
>  **Nautical Nuggets sponsored by Floki**  
>  A _vika_ is a sea-mile, answering to the land measurement of a _rôst_.
> 
> ***
> 
>  
> 
> **BONUS FEATURE!**
> 
>  
> 
> **I whipped up a little _divertissement_ for all you Vikings fans. It is an extremely silly one-shot called ['Vikings En Paris (2015)'](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4766876) and the title, um, says it all, really.**


	7. Ragnar at White Harbour Part One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the slight delay... work and life and also getting distracted by writing this (SHAMELESS PLUG ALERT) [Vikings-related one-shot](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4766876). And also [this one](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4859912).
> 
> Thanks as ever to the Lord Commander of Editing, ZoeSong.
> 
> ***
> 
> For info, I'm using a mixture of GoT show-canon and book-canon.

White Harbour is not white. It is grey, and full of rain like cold little daggers. 

But it is a great city, thinks Ragnar, far greater than anything in Eng-land or in the east. Large houses the colour of old teeth stack up like sea-rocks.

Floki’s eyes are wide. ‘The ships, Ragnar,’ he says in a voice that wreathes like mist. And it is true that they are unlike any that either of them have seen before. Sansa’s drawings in Kattegat were fair, but no one would have believed that they would be so big – bigger than their own new ships.

And now, Ragnar sees, they approach. Two ships. All his men and woman who are not rowing stand around the edges of his boat, shields held at their waists. 

Sansa is there. ‘King Ragnar, we must – we must show them we are not attacking them.’

‘Are we not?’ says Ragnar, in a quiet, trickster voice. Without his son, his friend, his ex-wife, there is something in him that would not mind meeting Odin a little early.

She gives a small, hard breath. ‘Yes. Even if we do not want to show them that we are – that I am a Stark – we must show that we have not come to fight.’

Ragnar shrugs. ‘It is so. They would know if we were coming to fight because they would already have arrows in their throats.’

‘And so might we, soon,’ she says almost under her breath, and he follows her eyes.

A great black rock sticks out of the water like a blunt finger. There are small pale rocks at its meeting-point with the sea – no. They are seals. The great rock has a row of tall sharp stones around the top of it, like a crown. The sort of stones that arrowmen could stand behind. Something that might be a head is there, and then disappears.

They near one ship, and Ragnar feels the waiting in the air, keen and taut. The sense that an arrow could soar into them at any moment, and a little-Ragnarok erupt. A man shouts to them, and Ragnar knows enough to guess what he says.

Sansa looks at him.

‘Tell him we have come to trade,’ he says.

***

Jon Snow is lying on a long table, being looked at by another man, who perhaps knows healing ways. He has a small wound in his side, and his face twitches just a little as he is touched. There is mud on his white face. 

Outside, in the yard and against the walls of this castle of East-watch, many more sit or lie, holding their wounds as if trying to keep their insides in. Others clutch their children to them in the same way. They had stared at us with barren eyes as we had walked past.

‘What fight?’ I say.

He leans over and spits a little blood onto the floor, before speaking in a quiet voice. 

‘A fight with darkness,’ says Athelstan, turning to me. ‘I think that is what he says.’ He speaks to Jon Snow.

The tall, wild-eyed man with the red beard is also in the room, looking at me. He is a warrior, this one. I can sense it in his blood, in the way he holds himself. It is what he knows. He looks a little like Thor often does in our stories.

Athelstan has forgotten that I am here with the other earls and with Bjørn. ‘Athelstan. What does he say?’

He gives me a quiet look that I know means sorry. ‘I am telling him that we have come from the sea. From very far away. And about Sansa. A little. He asks if we are -’ he frowns. ‘A word like 'wild'. Wild people, perhaps. I told him that we are not.’

The redbeard says something in a thick voice. 

‘This man agrees,’ says Athelstan. ‘That we are not the wild people.’

‘Mother,’ says Bjørn. ‘We must ask him what realm they have come from. Is it Jötunheimr? Or Asgard?’

Athelstan asks. ‘He says that they call it the north.’

The North. What we call ourselves. Northmen. 

‘And who lives there?’ says Bjørn. ‘Giants?’ There is awe in his voice that makes me remember the child he was. 

Athelstan speaks Jon Snow’s words. ‘Yes, giants. Not many. And – the wild people. Who look like us. And -’ Athelstan takes a breath. ‘The dead.’

‘The dead?’ I say, slowly, and look at Jon Snow. His face is almost as white as a dead man’s himself, but for the swipes of mud. I think again of snow-kings, of Snaer, son of Frosti. Of Snaer, son of Jökull.

‘Hel?’ I say quietly. 

Athelstan shakes his head, unsure. 

‘Does he mean that the dead are buried in the north realm?’

More words, and Athelstan almost looks a child suddenly too, one who wonders at something he has never seen before. ‘The dead live.’

It is Hel. Hel, and Jötunheimr, and Niflheim, all at once. My blood thins. 

‘I think -’ Athelstan listens as Jon Snow speaks on, though he seems mostly to be speaking to the redbeard now. ‘I think that they have been fighting the dead.’

What place is this? Our stories, happening on this land. It is as if someone has taken our stories and placed them in a jug and stirred them together. 

They have stopped talking. The redbeard has eyes like sea-storms, and he steps forward. A sharp word. I think it is _boy_. Jon Snow is looking behind me and I see that Bjørn is holding his great sword, which comes to his hip, his finger on the wolf carved on the hilt. ‘Bjørn,’ I say, in a quick mother-voice. 

Bjørn looks up and there is guilt in his eyes. He places the sword back against the wall.

‘It is ______,’ Jon Snow says, and his voice is not like the redbeard’s. Kind. ‘My _______ _______ it to me.’ 

Athelstan asks Jon Snow about his words, and I watch him sifting them, trying to find another that he will understand. ‘He says that the old earl and – leader, I think – gave it to him. That it was his.’ He looks at us and speaks more quietly now. ‘He is the earl and leader now. Of all the castles along the Wall.’

He does not seem much older than my son, and yet he rules all the men who dress like the night and have night in their eyes. Sansa had never spoken of this, only that he was one of them – it is something that she did not know.

‘I like the sword very much. I like the wolf on it,’ says Bjørn, before trying to say it in Sansa’s tongue, the words stumbling over each other. I think, just for a moment, of Rollo, and of him holding a sword like that. 

‘Does your sword have an animal on it?’ Athelstan asks Jon Snow’s words.

‘It does not. But if it did, it would be a bear.’ Bjørn looks at me proudly, and I pray again to Odin that his father is not dead and will see our son again.

Jon Snow listens to Athelstan, and speaks. ‘He says that the top of his sword used to be a bear, too,’ says Athelstan. 

Bjørn says the word for _bear_ in their tongue, and it sounds as if porridge is stuck in his mouth.

They look at each other and Jon Snow almost smiles, before his dark eyes grow wide, gulping the sea as Thor did from Útgarða-Loki’s horn. He says _Rickon_ , and begins to rise. The redbeard tries to stop him, saying something about his wound, but Jon Snow says it again and I think of my sister, lost long ago, and of the blood-ties that are thicker than mast-rope.

***

You did not like it. It was not like the Wordless Island. This was a great city, and there was a great noise and a smell as if every fish had been hauled from the sea. 

Everyone walked up the long platform by all the ships, and people stopped to look, watching from the paths and from their own boats. ‘Sansa,’ you said, and she looked round. ‘Stay with me.’

The road was made of small, smoothly-curved stones, with a very high wall on one side. You wondered if the ice-wall in the north of this land was bigger. There was another sound, a clinking of glass and metal hit together as one. A man was at a corner, and then another, and another. Warriors. A large band came marching towards you all, wearing the plates of metal like the Big Dog’s, and cloaks the colour of a fine sea. Long, forked spears. You curled your knuckles around your axe-shaft and stayed close to Sansa’s shoulder. The Big Dog, who did not seem to be with you all right now – perhaps he was a coward after all – had said before that they might be friend or foe. If it was to be foe, you would kill them all and eat their livers before you let them take your wife.

She stepped forward and for a moment you saw that long curve of her neck, thought of goddesses and swan maidens, before you stepped forward with her.

She spoke. The word _friends_.

The man at the head of the army looked at her as if he was trying to discover what tongue she spoke. Eyebrows meeting at the top of his nose.

Ragnar stepped forward. ‘Tell him about trading.’

‘With what?’ she said in a small hiss.

Ragnar lifted a shoulder and the side of his lip at the same time. ‘Furs. Slaves.’

Sansa took a little breath but did not speak straight away. When she did, there were many words, her hands moving like young birds.

The man listened to her but looked at everyone. At Ragnar. At you. You kept your face a stone. He tilted his head to the side, chin up a little, and you could smell the fight about to happen. Smell it as well as you could the fried pig, the baking bread somewhere in the air above the broad stench of the fish. This would be the way of it here – slashing through Sansa’s land, bones like tree-branches. You took a long breath in, felt it from deep in your blood. Readied yourself.

Words from the side of you. The Big Dog was walking up, half a head above almost everyone. Sansa turned, as if his words were food.

‘What does he say?’

‘He has talked to some men at the harbour. He says that we did not need to hide any wolf banner,’ Sansa said. ‘That they’re no friend of the Boltons.’ She looked at you, and at Ragnar. ‘Lord Manderly is being held by them at Winterfell.’

***

I stand at the door with Bjørn and Athelstan, watching the two brothers look at each other. Earl Olesen and Earl Edman have gone to see to our men and women. Jon Snow sits, his hands folded in front of him between his knees, and Rickon kicks the floor with the toe of his boot, as if he wishes to break his bone or draw blood. There is a candle, and the smell of peat-mud burning. Jon speaks quietly, words like a calm sea over pebbles.

Osha has walked away from them, but there is the fierceness of a warrior-mother in her for this boy. She stands close to us, but looks at them with hawk-eyes.

‘Why not he speak?’ I say.

She shakes her head and her words are threaded through with strong twine. Athelstan speaks them. ‘He has not spoken since word of his brother. His other brother.’ Yes. I know of this. The killing of Sansa’s mother and brother at a wedding. A terrible thing. ‘She says that the boy has seen much. That he misses his other brother, Bran, who has gone north. North of the Wall. He worries that he, too, is dead now. He thought that everyone was dead.’ 

In the little room, Jon Snow has tilted his head. Light curling around his black hair. Rickon has stopped kicking. To the side of them, the two great wolves, one the colour of fresh snow and the other the colour of wood-ash, sit very close together. 

I shiver. It is cold here. As cold as Jul-tide. 

Osha says a word, _ay_ , which means yes, and _cold_ , her face changing. Her eyes slide like warm butter on a plate up to my son and when she says something else, her words are a little like warm butter too.

‘What does she say?’ I ask.

Athelstan has the smallest smile, one that only I know how to see. ‘You don’t want to know,’ he says. 

Bjørn folds his arms and unfolds them and stares into the room. The candle is too far away to be making his cheeks so red.

A voice behind us. The man with the pox-face, the one we captured on his boat, whose house this seems to be. His name is Cot-ter-pyke. He is leaning on his sword and there are others with him. Trying to see past us into the room. His words do not seem kind. 

Osha walks as if she is with child, heavy-hipped, over to them, speaks low and quiet. There is the word _brother_ , and _fight_. 

Cot-ter-pyke also says _fight_ , in a way that sounds like he is spitting. He turns away, and the others follow him.

***

When Sansa had imagined being queen – something that seemed like another lifetime – it had been of walking in the gardens at King’s Landing, being fed fine food, holding great feasts at which her mother and father looked proudly on, visiting from Winterfell. Now she walked up a hill with Rollo next to her, leading a long trail of perhaps thirty men and women, with many more having gone back to the two ships in the harbour. Her stomach was keen with hunger and she was very tired, but she had never felt more alive.

She looked up at the cream-coloured stone of the castle. Everything was that colour here, just as she remembered her father telling her once. Then, she had only had ears for stories of the South and hardly listened. But now, as she climbed one white step after another, a knife-edged wind hitting the back of her throat, the South meant nothing to her. The North did. She was returning home.

Her heart was beating very fast by the time they reached the top, where more Manderly guards stood at the great gates. She tried not think of fighting and bloody, bubbling yells. This would not turn into the panic of the Quiet Isle. ‘Word has already been sent, I believe,’ she said to the first guard, trying to ignore the pounding in her chest.

He gazed at her, eyes travelling warily and a little curiously to the side of her hair, and to the sword at her hip.

Sansa made her jaw tight. ‘If House Manderly will not accept House Stark, then I have been away too long.’ She felt Ragnar’s eyes on her.

The guard nodded at her before looking up at a small halfway turret and giving a signal to the man there. The portcullis began to lift, a groan of chains and oil. 

Sansa took a step forward. 

‘Not all of you,’ the man said with a flash of panic in his eyes, his hand moving to the hilt of his sword. As Sansa turned, every other guard was also moving towards their weapon. 

‘Very well,’ she said, quickly. ‘King Ragnar. We cannot all go in.’

Ragnar had been eyeing the castle wall with a strange expression, as if he was a small boy looking at a sword for the first time. ‘Torstein,’ he said, still staring upwards and Torstein took a step forward. Ragnar’s voice drifted like clouds. ‘Wait here with everyone.’

In the courtyard, a large man in his forties flanked by guards was waiting for them, his hands behind his back. Sansa had tried desperately to remember the name of Lord Wyman Manderly’s sons on her way up the steps, to no avail. She spoke carefully. ‘Lord Manderly. I am Sansa, of House Stark.’

Lord Manderly wore a dark-blue doublet over a great belly, and his cheeks and nose had the same roundness, as if he had been pumped full of water. ‘Lady Sansa.’ He took a step forward, eyes moving to Ylva, who stood alert and quivering by her ankles. ‘I do believe that it is you.’ 

He came very close to her and she could feel Rollo stiffen. She stood very tall, trying to give him a look that was both smiling and unsmiling at once. 

‘I remember a feast, many years ago,’ he said. His voice was plump too, though had something sagging about it. ‘You were much smaller. A child.’ A very small glance to her neck, perhaps lower. She knew he thought her a child no longer, though he had the decency not to say it. 

‘I believe that I remember you, too, Lord Manderly. You and Robb sparred a little in the courtyard. Even though both of you had drunk a little too much wine the night before.’ A kind version of events. Robb had beaten the man twenty years older than he as he might have a five-year old child. Sansa remembered him falling backwards into the mud and Robb trying to pull him up, and falling down with him. 

He nodded slowly, a small, crumpled smile that just touched the sides of his eyes. ‘You have your mother’s look. And a little of your brother’s, the gods rest him.’

‘I would that they do, my lord. But I do not think he is at peace.’

The crow-lines disappeared and his eyes became shallow rock-pools. ‘You know that my brother Wendel was also killed that night.’

‘I did not.’ _Wendel_. This made him Wylis, then. She looked at him. ‘I am sorry, my lord.’

He seemed to be caught in a memory of something for a moment before he met her gaze again. ‘The North is not what it was.’

She shook her head, and had no idea what to say next.

‘Word was that _you_ were dead. Or lost, presumed dead. Who are these people?’ His voice was sober and curious as he looked past her.

‘They are – my rescuers. My allies.’ She looked either side of her, wondering whom to introduce first. ‘This is my husband, Rollo, and this is his brother, who is the king of his land. This is King Ragnar.’

Ragnar had been stroking one edge of his beard, and dipped his head in a way that looked both utterly deferential and rather mocking. ‘Hello.’

Rollo nodded firmly, small and serious. ‘Hello.’

‘King of -?’ Ser Wylis let the question drift.

Sansa tried to explain as best she could, wondering how many times she would have to convince people that they were not wildlings, or Iron Born. ‘There are lands none of us know about, Ser Wylis. That are not on our maps.’

Ser Wylis was only half-listening, a man coming to whisper in his ear. His eyes wandered past Sansa’s shoulder. ‘These are not all men from your far-land. You appear to have let a Lannister spy into your ranks.’

She did not need to turn round to know whom he meant, though she swore that she could feel the resentful heat from the Hound burning her neck. ‘Sandor Clegane is no spy. He -’ she stopped herself saying _deserted_. ‘He left King’s Landing of his own accord. And helped my sister for a while. He is no friend of the Lannisters.’

She glanced round then, daring to look at the Hound for a moment. He was staring straight ahead, over the heads of everyone else, as if he was made of stone and someone had just carted him there. It was rather too soon to say that he was friend of anyone else’s.

Instead she met Ser Wylis' gaze again and kept her voice very firm, though her heart was beating like a Winternights feast-drum. ‘And no friend of the Boltons.’

He stared at her. ‘Come. Bring your -’ his eyebrows drew down a little, and she could see that the suspicion was still there. ‘Your men with you.’

***

For the first time in a long time, I lie in a bed, and Athelstan lies next to me.

‘It is very narrow,’ he says. ‘Perhaps you should have it alone.’

I draw my leg over Athelstan’s thighs, work an arm under his neck. ‘No,’ I say, in my earl-voice. ‘And anyway, it is a cold place. I need you to keep me warm.’

He smiles. ‘Then I will stay.’

‘How is it that it is winter here, Athelstan?’

‘I believe that in other parts of the world, the seasons do change. That they are not all like our own, Eng-land’s or Daneland.’ I hear the frown in his voice. ‘But how one season can last many years, as Sansa said, that I do not know.’

I try not to think of Fimbelwinter. It is hard to understand this place. A jötunn, who does not seem to be an Æsir or Vanir, at least not to these men. A place where the dead live. Where the dead _fight_. If Ragnar was here - I can see the blueness of his eyes in the ice wall, and know how wide they would grow to see it all.

‘Do you think Sansa is dead?’ I say.

‘I pray that she is not. And I pray that Ragnar is not.’

I like to hear in his voice how much he cares for his friend. ‘Who do you pray to?’

‘The Christian god, and Jesus Christ. And Odin. And any other god who will listen.’ His eyes are watchful and like clear glass. 

It feels like we need many gods in this place. ‘Tell me. What did the man Cot-ter-pyke say earlier?’

‘He said that the wrong fights were being fought. That the _Lord Commander_ -’ this is the word for what Jon Snow is. I understand now that he does not rule with family but is like a warrior-earl. That these men are fighters, and have no blood-ties. ‘Should be leading his men, not people who they have been fighting for hundreds of years. I think he means the wild people.’

They do look much like us, these people. Who seem to be Osha’s people. Skins tough as leather, eyes that know battles and hardship. 

I put my fingers in Athelstan’s beard, in his hair. ‘Your hair grows long,’ I say. ‘Long like a wild person’s.’

He smiles, creases of skin against my hand. ‘There has not been much time for grooming.’

‘I will cut it for you. Unless you want to grow it like Tormund Giantsbane.’ This is the name of the redbeard, though he did not give it himself. He seems to be close to Jon Snow. 

‘He is an impressive man,’ says Athelstan, and there is something teasing in his voice. 

I shift myself on top of him and put my mouth very close to his. Make my voice like a stirred summer wind. ‘So are you, Athelstan.’ I think of his body as a stretched tree, or a boat. 

‘I am still surprised that you think so,’ he says, quiet and calm and half-smiling, as I move my hand down his belly and into the hair between his legs. 

***

The earl of this place is a fat man. He looks like he eats whole goats baked in butter and ale. He has very little hair on his head and his moustache is falling off his face, and it makes him look like one of the walruses that fishermen pass on the northern part of Ragnar’s own coastline, lying on rocks in the sun. As the earl sits down on his throne, Ragnar imagines leaning over and pushing him so that he rolls off not onto the cold stone floor but into the sea.

It is a great house, this one. Their word – _castle_. Tall walls of pale stone, bone-coloured. There are embroidered blankets on the walls, and many old weapons – broken shields and swords crusted with rust – hanging down. Floki stops to run his fingers over the blunt nose of a wood-carved woman, who must have once been the head of a ship. This man would laugh to see Ragnar’s own house, though it is the finest in his own land. What a place is this, this West-er-os, that such a weak-looking, fat man can own such a house?

He stares at the banner above the earl’s head, which is a man who is also a fish. ‘Aegir?’ whispers Floki, quiet as the sea in a shell. Ragnar shakes his head. They do not have the same gods. He had been sure that they did not. 

Sansa stands before the throne, her hands not on her sword but in front of her. She stands like a servant, but also like a queen. It is something he himself has mastered, this way of being. Rollo stands a little way behind her and Ragnar joins him. And then takes one more step forward. Rollo gives him a not-surprised look.

Ragnar listens as Sansa and the Fat Walrus Earl talk. She says _father_ , and the man’s moustache droops even lower. They would talk on without him if he did not remind her that he was here. He moves closer, nudges her elbow with his own and speaks into her ear. ‘What does he say?’

‘I am asking him how long his father has been held at Winterfell.’ She looks with respect at the Fat Earl. ‘His father - Lord Wyman - was always a friend of my family’s.’ She speaks in her own tongue, and Ragnar knows that she says this again, to him. ‘He says that his father has been there for many days, but not yet a whole turn of the moon.’

She listens, speaks more, and Ragnar hears her words hit the walls, come back again even softer than before. ‘I said that I hope his father has not been harmed, and Ser Wylis says that he believes not,’ she tells him. ‘That he is being held for ransom and that White Harbour must agree to send an army to Winterfell to fight against Stannis, who marches on it from the north.’

It is no different from Ragnar’s own lands, this place. Battles and hostages. Kings and not-kings. But that can be said of the other realms too. They are all the same, men and gods. 

Sansa is still telling Ragnar the Fat Walrus Earl’s words. ‘He says that his father went to Winterfell for – a wedding.’ Her voice curls up, uncertain, on the last word. She asks a question.

The earl’s face hangs down as if pulled by light elves that no one can see. His words become slower. 

‘He says that it was the wedding of Lord Bolton’s son, Ramsay,’ she says, and looks at the Big Dog for a moment as he mutters something, a cur-grumble. She blinks and turns back to the earl, and Ragnar knows what she asks. _Who did he marry_?

Ragnar has been running his middle fingernail against the jagged edge of the nail on his thumb. But he stops as he realises that there are no more voices. Looks up.

Sansa has gone very still and Rollo steps up to her, catches her arm. Behind him, the Big Dog says the word he says all the time, as sharply as a little knife into flesh.

The princess whispers three little moth-sounds, just once, and as they flutter about these stone walls they become another moth, and another. And Ragnar puts them together and knows what they mean. Who they mean.

 _Ar-y-a_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Norse Mythology School** :
> 
>  _Jötunheimr_ is the realm of the giants
> 
>  _Asgard_ is the realm of the gods.
> 
>  _Niflheim_ is the cold, icy, misty realm of the dead. The goddess Hel resides there. But Hel is also the name of the place where the undistinguished go to die.
> 
>  _Snaer_ , or Snow the Old, is the son of the snow-giant Frosti in the _Orkneyinga_ saga. In _Hversu Noregr byggdist_ (‘How Norway Was Inhabited’), Snaer is the son of Jökull (icicle, ice, glacier).
> 
>  _Útgarða-Loki_ is the giant (not to be confused with Loki!) who lives at Útgarða castle in Jötunheimr. The story of Thor’s drinking horn is one told by Harbard in Vikings Season 3 – it is one of several challenges that the giant sets Thor, giving him a horn of water that he must drink, whilst not telling him that actually the other end is in the sea. Thor drains an impressive amount, because he is awesome.
> 
> The _Æsir_ are the main pantheon of Norse gods. The _Vanir_ are the secondary pantheon. 
> 
> _Fimbelwinter_ is when winter lasts for three years, before Ragnarok erupts. During this time, brothers will kill brothers and the world will be plagued by wars. Yup, GRRM loves his Norse mythology…
> 
> The Norse winter festival of _Jul_ is December 20th-31st.
> 
> ***
> 
> Thanks as always for reading and commenting!


	8. Ragnar At White Harbour Part Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With thanks to Editor ZoeSong.

‘Sansa is married?’

‘Yes.’

Bjørn, the other earls and I are sitting with Jon Snow in the small room that holds drawn maps and weapons. Tormund Giantsbane is also here, with his Thor-glare. There is the smell of leather and cooking onions from somewhere deeper in the great house. Jon Snow has asked more of his half-sister and with Athelstan’s help, I have told him about her time with us. And of Rollo.

‘He is good man,’ I say, knowing that it was not always so. ‘Fighter.’ I look at Athelstan. ‘Tell him ‘brave.’

Jon Snow nods, as if drinking on a rich blackberry wine. ‘I am glad,’ he says, but there is something in his eyes that is surprised. It does not seem that he and Sansa were close, I think, that he finds it hard to imagine her married to one of us. ‘But you do not know where they are?’

I shake my head. ‘Not dead,’ I say. ‘I not know, but -’ I place my hand on my chest and glance at Athelstan for the word, which he murmurs to me. ‘I _believe_. Not dead.’

‘But lost,’ he says, and his eyes are dark embers. He is a good man - troubled, but strong. I see it more and more. There is the gentleness of Baldr in him, as though he does not want to lead but knows he must. It is not the look that Ragnar had when he sat on his throne.

‘Do you know of Stannis?’ Jon Snow asks.

I shrug my shoulders. A little. Sansa had told us that he was one of the men who wanted to be king. 

Jon Snow tells us that he himself thinks Stannis should be king of West-er-os, if someone must be. That he met him at his other house on the Wall, and that he heads south with his great army. ‘My brother is -’ I do not understand the rest. 

‘He says that Rickon is the rightful earl of Winterfell,’ says Athelstan, with little breaths as he listens carefully. ‘That his brother Bran may be alive, north of the Wall, but without him here, that it is Rickon. Stannis wanted me to go to Winterfell, but I cannot leave here.’

‘Tell him that we came to help Sansa take back Winterfell, as well as to discover new lands,’ I say. There is a noise from Earl Edman, not quite a cough.

Jon Snow nods again and looks heavy with thoughts.

There is a scuffing sound and Cot-ter-pyke is at the door. A face that speaks anger at not being in the room, though we were talking only of family. Jon Snow moves an arm as if asking him to sit, but Cot-ter-pyke says quick, flinted words and instead Jon gets up and moves to the hallway. Tormund, his great red shadow, follows.

‘Earl Ingstad, what is our plan?’ says Earl Olesen.

I do not answer. It is hard to know. There are threads, fine and winnowing, pulling in different directions.

‘Without Sansa and Rollo, Earl Ingstad, there is no alliance between our land and this one.’ says Earl Edman. ‘Unless you plan to marry a ten-year-old boy.’ 

Such a weak man. Looking for any way to get home, having only just arrived here. ‘And you would like to sail back, Earl Edman?’ Earl Edman folds his arms.

Earl Olesen puts his great hands on his knees. ‘Ragnar is dead, Lagertha. And this place – this place is Niflheim. We should not stay here.’

Bjørn stands up then. ‘You do not know that he is dead.’ His fists curl into potatoes. 

‘You do not, _Earl Olesen_ ,’ I say, too. ‘But I agree with you that we will not stay here. We have only seen a little of this land. It is not all ice and snow.’

Outside, the voice of Cot-ter-pyke jerks, suddenly much louder than it was, before. There is Jon’s voice, soft and quiet, and Tormund’s, which is like thunder in heavy cloud. I look over and Jon is standing between them both.

Athelstan has been gazing at the doorway, one ear on our talk, and one on theirs. ‘What do they say?’ I ask.

‘Cot-ter-pyke is unhappy at all the people here,’ Athelstan says, quietly. ‘The wild people, and us. He says that there is no food to feed these people, even if -’ he raises his eyebrows. ‘They deserved feeding.’

There are more short words, like jabs with a meat-knife, before Cot-ter-pyke walks away. Jon Snow stares at Tormund for a long time, before closing his eyes and giving the smallest shake of his head.

***

Sansa found the Hound leaning against a wall, a wineskin in his hand. Blood trailing from his knuckles. 

‘What did you to do to your hand?’

He glanced down at it and shook his shoulders, as if shrugging off a cloak. ‘Nothing.’

The wineskin had a streak of dark-red on the tan hide and when the Hound drank again, he left a little smear of it on his beard. 

‘Were you fighting?’ Sansa prayed that he and Rollo had not been tussling in a corner whilst she had slept. After the shock of hearing her sister’s name, Ser Wylis had suggested that she and Rollo take a chamber up at the south end of the castle. Rollo had kept a warm hand on her back as she had vomited and cried, the happiness in knowing that Arya was still alive stirred up with a black nausea at the thought of her trapped in Winterfell with the man who had killed their family. _Married_ into it. It had taken her a long time to go to sleep, unable to blink away the image of the flayed man, and when she had woken, Rollo had not been there. 

‘Only with that wall.’ The Hound nodded opposite him, and Sansa could see a faint smudge of purple on the stone. She looked at him as he leant back again with a ragged sigh. 

She joined him, her palms pressing against the stone in the well of her back. ‘What do you know of Ramsay Bolton?’

‘Ramsay Snow. Or he was, last time I heard.’ He glanced at her. ‘Bastard.’ 

She thought of her own half-brother and the guilt at how she used to think of that word too, when she was younger. 

‘He’s a -’ the Hound stopped suddenly, biting his lip, and took another swig of wine.

‘Don’t hide anything from me,’ she said. ‘You never did before.’

He looked down at his feet for a moment, before raising his head again. ‘He’s a vicious cunt, from what I remember hearing.’

She took a sharp inbreath and felt the nettle-sting of tears. _Arya_. ‘What will he do to her?’

He shook his head. ‘Nothing, if he has any sense. She’s a Stark, which is why they married him to her. To take the North, once and for all.’ He didn’t sound like he really believed his own words, as if they tasted sour.

‘But – what did you hear about him?’

He only hummed, but it was a strange, taut sound, and Sansa could suddenly sense something simmering in him, the rage and power of a dangerous animal. She realised that every fibre of him was trying to keep it from tearing out. He shook some of the blood off his hand, eyeing his knuckles with tightly-curled fingers, and Sansa realised why he had hit the wall. Out of fury, or something else, for her sister. 

‘ _Tell_ me.’

When he spoke, his words were scraped of any emotion. ‘Did things to peasant girls. Dead or alive. Forced a woman to marry him, Lady someone-or-other.’ He looked at her, with flat grey eyes. ‘Raped her. Locked her in a tower. She starved to death, after eating some of her own fingers.’ 

***

Athelstan and I visit our men and women, who have made camp amongst the tall pine trees. They are cold, and it is true that there is not enough food, though some have been fishing. I talk with as many as I can, try to give them strength through my words and smiles. As we walk back, the wild people who came south in the boats huddle against the walls, and the men who wear the night’s black walk amongst them with swords and do not look kind.

‘Athelstan, why are there no women here?’ I say. ‘These men are not priests.’

‘They are not, but perhaps they are like priests in some ways,’ he says. ‘Instead of prayer, they are devoted to this.’ We both look again at the wall that seems to be something made by Thor, not men, and which might blind us if we look too long. ‘Protecting this is their calling. I suppose someone thought that they should not get distracted.’

I make a sound that is part angry breath, part laugh. ‘ _Distracted_. As if a man could not look to his job if a woman was around.’ I turn to the man with the long, sad face called Edd, whom Jon Snow asked to walk with us. ‘Why women no fight in army?’

He mutters something, and his words are muddy and curling. 

Athelstan tells me. ‘He says the Wall is no place for women.’ He folds his hands, a quick look at me. ‘No place for anyone.’ 

There is a sound like a whispered shadow, and I look behind to see Rickon’s wolf, which has the name Dog-With-Beard, slipping past us. A whistle, the kind made through clasped hands and crooked thumbs, comes from one corner of the great house, and I see Rickon and my own son standing there as the wolf joins them. Bjørn has made efforts to be with Rickon, showing him his sword and letting him shoot arrows at trees.

Now, Bjørn kneels and carefully puts out his hand. The wolf’s back legs became taut, but he lets Bjørn put his palm between his ears, and his tail wags once, like an axe-swipe.

Osha pushes herself off the low wall by a foot, walking around the back of Bjørn and Rickon. There is something like a slow dance in the way she walks as she says something, and Bjørn folds his fingers together, putting his head down as if hearing something he has heard many times already. Rickon places a hand on Dog-With-Beard’s back and Osha walks after him, though turns on her heel to look at Bjørn with a grin.

My son joins us. ‘Has Rickon spoken to you, Bjørn?’ I ask.

Bjørn blows on his hands before tucking them under his armpits. ‘Not in words.’

‘And Osha?’ I cannot help being a little sly. 

‘She speaks too many words,’ Bjørn says with a great sigh, before leaning against the wall. ‘It feels odd here, mother. This is an angry place.’

‘Yes. It is.’

‘I do not think that the men here want Jon Snow to be their leader,’ he says.

‘Or they do not like how he leads them,’ says Athelstan and we look at him. ‘I heard some of them talking – they forget that I can understand most of it. They said that he was drawing them into darkness. That the wild people were enemies, and they should have left them to be killed. That they will all be killed.’

There is the sound of two crows overhead, like elf-children calling.

‘Being a leader is hard,’ Bjørn says. ‘Having to try and make everyone happy.’ His eyebrows draw down and he looks as if rain pours on him. ‘I do not want my father to be dead.’

‘Odin would not let him die in the fog,’ I say with a gentle voice. ‘It is not the death your father will have.’ It is not the death he would _want_ , I think, imagining him glaring at Odin over a table in Valhalla, tapping his fingers.

Bjørn’s eyes are deep blue and full of the sea. ‘I am not ready to be king.’

I put my hand on his jaw. ‘You are. You are ready. But you do not have to be king yet.’

***

Ragnar sits on the low stone step by the throne in the fishman’s hall. He and his brother are being shown a long sword by one of the Fat Walrus Earl’s men, and the earl himself is talking about it in very loud, slow words so that Ragnar might understand. Floki wanders around, occasionally looking back at them with a disinterested sneer, touching things on the walls. There is still a tension here, but no one has drawn a weapon. 

Ragnar was also offered a room, and he lay awake on the great bed looking at the stone walls, or getting up to see the great yard in the middle. Yes, it was bigger than King Ecbert’s castle. He liked to think of Ecbert’s face falling, to see something like this. That Roman bath would be nothing more than puddle here.

Light deer-steps, and Sansa is there with red cheeks and big, wild eyes. She looks like she wants to fight Valkyries. Jötunns. ‘We are going to Winterfell.’ She says words to the Fat Earl - the same, he thinks - before looking back at Ragnar. ‘ _Now_.’

Rollo walks quickly over to her. ‘ _Raf refr_. What is it?’

She turns to him, very quickly. ‘You know what it is. They have Arya. _Arya_. And they -’ she looks about, as if she is dying of thirst or hunger. ‘He -’ The Big Dog walks in behind her, and he looks angry and sad and perhaps a little drunk.

Rollo faces him and says Common Tongue words. ‘What speak you to her?’

The Big Dog shakes his head and stares at him, folding his arms.

‘He told me the truth,’ says Sansa. ‘What I needed to know. About the Boltons. About Ramsay Bolton.’ She addresses the Fat Earl, words quick and flying. He puts his hands up, and one curves round as if her shoulder is much nearer than it is.

Yes, she should sit. Ragnar stands. ‘Princess. Calm yourself.’ She has stopped being pretend-queen.

She makes a sound that is both yell and sob and stalks up to the stone step. Sits down. ‘Arya,’ she says. ‘The man they have married her to is – he is _evil_. He is worse than any god in any of your stories.’ 

Ragnar thinks of Loki at Ragnarok and wonders if this can be true. 

‘We must go. It’s already been days, weeks. They are in my home and they have her and they could be – he could be -’

She speaks to the Fat Earl, and her voice becomes more like a young girl’s. The word _please_ and _your father_ and _my sister_ , and Ragnar knows that she asks him to fight with her.

The earl’s eyes are calm and dark and far away all at once. He does not speak.

Rollo sits next to her, puts an arm around her waist. 

‘If he will not send his men, then we must go,’ she says to him, to Ragnar, her voice crumbling into bits of stale bread. ‘Alone.’

‘Princess,’ says Ragnar, sitting on the other side of her. He understands the love for a sister. It is like his own for a brother who wanted to kill him but found that he could not. ‘It does no good to go now. You have been telling me we need to have allies.’ He makes his voice softer than it has been to her for some time. ‘It sounds like there are many men at your home, and two ships of Northmen may not be enough.’ He glances at the Fat Earl, who thinks on, seems to be listening, but Ragnar knows he cannot understand their words. ‘This man’s father is there. He is a coward if he does not join us. We wait.’ 

‘Or perhaps we make them join us,’ says Rollo.

But they do not have to. There is a cough and the Fat Earl speaks to Sansa, words like stones falling to the bottom of a lake. Sansa takes in a big, slow breath, looks at the Big Dog. He gives a small nod.

‘What does he say?’ Ragnar asks, lightly, as if talking to a shy child.

‘He says that he will send a raven to the northernmost Houses. To see where Stannis’ army is.’ She swallows, and looks very tired, but perhaps there is a little hope there. ‘If it is true that he marches south, then Ser Wylis will gather his own army here, and we will join Stannis to take Winterfell.’

***

That night, I wake to a sound like a mouse over straw. I look at the doorway to see Bjørn disappearing with Rickon. It is good to see them together, even if they should both be sleeping now. It makes me glad to see my son as the boy he sometimes still is.

I pull Athelstan by the waist into my lap again, and he shifts and moves a little as I place my cheek against his back. But I do not sleep again. I think of all of the men in this great house, wrapped in their night, and all the people in the grounds and outside the walls, and my own people, shivering and cold in the forests. 

Another sound. Perhaps a man’s voice. Bjørn has not shut the door properly, and there are three shadows, one after the other, and I think of Niflheim again. I rise, dress fast, find my sword. If I just find Bjørn and Rickon chasing each other down a hallway, then I can scold them and come back to bed. I step over the earls, who sleep on straw pallets on the floor.

I listen. A slow dripping from the roof, and the snap of a fire in a far room. A man snoring. Skadi, make me a shadow. I move along the wall. 

There is the sound of running, flat, dry steps, a heavy man. I follow, under a stone arch that leads towards Jon Snow’s room. I walk straight into a hard, tall thing that I know straight away is my son.

I hiss his name. ‘What are you doing?’

Bjørn puts his finger to his lips, and I know from the rind of light that I see in his eyes that this is no game. That something dangerous is very near. He is still and ready, and I make myself the same, though I do not know why. We are one turn away from Jon Snow’s room, and I hear the door open and steps, and Bjørn is moving, and I behind him.

It all happens so very fast. There is the dull glow from the fire and Jon, standing up, and the men saying the same words all at once, and Bjørn is running into the room. There are small daggers in the men’s hands and as one goes towards Jon, Bjørn is there, smashing his elbow into his cheek before turning and cutting him as he falls. 

They are here to kill Jon Snow. Four men - his own men - and Jon’s sword is in the far corner of the room. I rush to join them, though sleep still makes my bones heavier than they should be. But my son – my son is Hermóðr and Tyr and Thor, and he moves so fast, a sword that sings, and another man falls.

And there is the sound that makes me think of Hel but that I know must be wolf, or wolves, and both animals are in the room, one tearing into the neck of the third man, and the white wolf standing over the fourth, and Jon calls its name and stops it.

The fourth man is Cot-ter-pyke. He is on his back, staring in fear at the wolf, whose teeth are bared very close to his neck.

Three dead men lie on the floor, scattered like tree limbs after Thor’s anger. Jon has a cut on his arm but nothing more. He looks at me, and at my son, his eyes wide with anger that is becoming something else. ‘Thank you.’

‘Not thank me,’ says Bjørn, his chest rising and falling like a storm-sea, wiping blood from his chin with his sleeve. ‘Thank brother.’

Jon looks past us all to where Rickon stands at the door, half in and half out of the room, biting on his finger, his wolf sitting on his haunches next to him, bloody-mouthed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, y'all - comments much appreciated! The next chapter will be, for once, coming really soon.
> 
>  **Old Norse School** :
> 
> The word ‘shaggy’ probably comes from the Old Norse root, _skeggjaðr_ , which means bearded. Hence Dog-With-Beard for Rickon’s unkempt wolf-pal.
> 
>  **School of Norse Mythology** :
> 
>  _Niflheim_ \- in this realm, all beings are manifest as shadows.
> 
>  _Baldr_ is Odin’s most gentle son. It is his killing that begins Ragnarok.
> 
>  _Skadi_ is the goddess of winter but also of shadows.
> 
>  _Hermóðr_ is Odin’s heroic son who tries to save Baldr.
> 
>  _Tyr_ is the god of war and man-to-man combat.


	9. Ragnar At White Harbour Part Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big thanks to meticulous Editor ZoeSong.

They wait. Days pass. Ragnar, Floki and Torstein, shadowed by Manderly guards with their long spears, walk around some of the great city, which as Ragnar understands it, is not even that great. It is a small city compared to King’s Landing, Sansa has told him, wearing her sad, tired eyes. It is too much to cram into his skull – such tall walls and towers, and the sight of these houses that ordinary traders and fishermen live in and yet seem as good as his own house. Their prison is a great castle fit for a god. Floki insists on going to the inner harbour, and is chased off two ships.

‘I need to meet their master builder, Ragnar,’ he says, ignoring the angry shouts behind him. ‘Who is it that has made these wonders? I must find him.’

‘Well you cannot find him now,’ Ragnar says. ‘Our friends are taking us back up the hill.’ He widens his eyes, all mock-wonder. ‘To train.’

By the time they reach the wide, frost-hardened ground of the training yard, some of his men and women are already fighting. Ragnar climbs the stone steps to where Sansa stands with the Fat Walrus Earl. It is plain to see that although West-er-os is great in many things, their fighters are not good. They seem clumsy, moving like horses carrying Floki’s boat-planks.

‘They fight with too much armour,’ he says to the earl, and Sansa translates.

‘He says that men need armour to protect themselves.’

‘It makes them heavy. Slow.’

‘Better that than bleeding and dying.’

‘My brother is not bleeding or dying.’ They all look down at Rollo, who is only in his tunic. He stalks through the fighting, shouting instructions that only one side understand, calling on pairs to fight, touching shoulders, moving people. He has taken on the training naturally, without even being asked.

‘Your husband is an _________ man,’ says the earl.

‘Impressive,’ says Sansa to Ragnar quietly, and Ragnar rolls his eyes. His brother will probably take his tunic off in a moment. The Big Dog lurks against a wall, watching, occasionally pushing himself off to land a blow on a passing man who then falls like a stone to the floor. Ragnar chews on a fingernail, wondering when it had become acceptable for his people to be made to put on such a display. They are showing themselves off like slaves to be bought at market.

‘What about the king?’ asks the earl to Sansa. ‘Does he fight?’

Ragnar feels a gorse-prick of irritation. ‘Yes. I fight.’ He doesn’t add _fat man_ , but he thinks it. ‘Do you?’

‘I do.’ The Fat Walrus Earl looks quickly at Sansa, who picks up his words. 

‘He says that he knows the stories about his father -’ Sansa lowers her voice, though there is no need. ‘There were stories about Ser Wyman not being able to ride a horse. And Ser Wylis says that he also knows he himself is larger than most. But he commands where he can.’

There is a war-cry like a whooper swan as Floki elbows into the crowd of people, swinging his axe high. He makes a circle of space around himself as the fishman fighters back off.

The earl folds his hands over his great belly and his face becomes serious and hard, as much as it can with all that flesh. He speaks on.

‘He says that if we were to fight together, Eastnorthmen -’ this seemed to be his name for Ragnar’s people – ‘and House Manderly, he would have the pleasure of giving warrior command to King Ragnar. He can see that your people know how to fight.’ Ragnar did not hear the word _king_ in Common Tongue, and wonders whether Sansa added it herself. But he sees something clean and honest in the Fat Earl’s eyes. Ragnar gives a small nod, though keeps his eyes a little bored and faraway.

Sansa has been scratching at the wooden rail as she talks, looking down at the training yard. 

‘You can go to your husband, if you like,’ says Ragnar. ‘I can understand enough.’

‘It is not that,’ she says, and he sees something tight and desperate in her eyes. ‘I want to fight.’ She gives that odd little bent-knee bow to the earl, says some light words, and walks quickly down the steps.

***

It was better with her sword out. Amongst the thick hum of people tussling, Sansa found Keira, one of the shieldmaidens who had been most friendly, and some of the other women sparring together at one edge of the yard. Ylva had run ahead of Sansa and was wreathing herself around the girls’ feet.

Keira’s face was damp and flushed red. ‘We are bored of fighting each other. It is time to fight these West-er-os men.’

Sansa told Yvla to stay as Keira took Sansa’s elbow and marched them up to a group of three Manderly men, who stopped short and grinned at them. The tallest one muttered something to his neighbour and Sansa heard _legs_ and _spears_ and knew that they weren’t talking about weapons.

‘I think that you forget that one of us understands you,’ she said and his face fell.

‘Sorry, my lady. It’s just – we don’t fight women.’

Keira was already charging at the second man, with a shriek loud enough to startle the dead. There was a garbled _seven hells_ before swords were raised and two other shieldmaidens were on them, reining in their blows just enough to ensure that no one actually got hurt. Sansa took a deep breath and lifted her arm.

She found herself sparring with the third man in the group, smaller, but barrel-shaped, with eyes that blurted wariness and just a little glee, she thought. He watched her carefully, meeting her every move, and Sansa realised how easy Rollo had been with her - though Lagertha and her shieldmaidens had always been much less forgiving. But she made herself think _Ramsay Bolton_ and it gave her enough to run at him again and again, until he had to step backwards once and came at her more strongly, perhaps out of instinct more than anything else. His sword came alarmingly close to her face before a shadow blocked out the cold sunlight and suddenly the man was on the ground, a soft grunt of alarm and pain.

The Hound stood over him.

‘I didn’t need you to do that,’ Sansa said, swiping her hair away from her forehead.

‘You did,’ he said. ‘You think it wise to try and take the lady’s jaw off?’ He slid his eyes down to the man, who was lying flat on the ground, holding his shoulder.

‘She wanted to fight,’ he said, a slight bleating in his voice. ‘I didn’t ask her to.’

‘So if he’s on the ground, what do you do?’ He was talking to her again, his voice level, testing.

Sansa felt a rising petulance. ‘Put my sword about _there_ ,’ she said, lying the blade flat against the top of the man’s inner thigh. His eyes widened, darting between the two of them.

There was a cheer. Sansa turned to see Rollo, tunicless, drinking the last dregs from a large tumbler of ale, his chin tipped up. Shaking the last drops over his head, he tossed his hair wildly about before roaring at the man in front of him and lunging forwards. She couldn’t help grinning.

The Hound was watching too, eyebrows deeply furrowed, perhaps at the tattoos curling over Rollo’s pale and now ale-spattered muscles. He sniffed and spat something onto the ground. ‘Fine. I’ll leave you to finish your victim off.’ He spoke almost under his breath as he walked off. ‘If you can tear your fucking eyes away.’

Sansa glared at his back before watching Rollo for a moment longer. His dagger-wound had healed, a deep-brown crescent under one side of his ribs. It was good to see him moving again, and drinking, even if most of it had gone all over him. She remembered being at Rollo’s bedside, helping him drink wine and him throwing it all back up again. 

‘My lady?’ A small voice from beneath her. ‘Can you call your wolf off, please?’

Sansa looked down, to where Yvla had her mouth around the boot-toes of the Manderly man. ‘Sorry. Ylva, _off_.’ The Hound had gone to lean back against the wall, his arms folded, and Ylva ran over, dodging everyone, and sat at his feet, looking up at him. He eyed her for a moment before staring steadfastly at the fighting. 

Sansa removed her blade from the Manderly man’s crotch and let him rise. ‘Shall we do it again?’ 

He looked a little dejected. ‘Very well, my lady.’

***

Snow swirls. Skadi is doing death-dances.

A man kneels in the yard, his hands tied behind his back. He leans over a block of wood, the skin of his neck on show. 

We stand around him, our people and his, clouds of breath like vǫrðrs. 

Jon Snow stands next to this man with his great sword. He looks tired and yet very alive. He speaks words, more loudly and slowly than I have heard him speak, turning round so that everyone can hear. He says the man’s name, _Cot-ter-pyke_ , and he says the word _death_. I do not need to hear the rest.

Cot-ter-pyke, his head turned to the side, says some words that sound like wine mixed with ashes. I think of Jarl Borg’s fate, the lake of blood, the bone-wings. This man deserved that same fate. Jon Snow is kind.

The sword is enough to split head from neck so cleanly that there is no jagged bone at all, and the blood takes a while to come. 

Jon Snow walks away, fast steps. He walks past his own men in black, and past me.

We find him a little later in the forest standing with Tormund and Sad-Faced Edd. He walks over to us.

‘He says he cannot thank you enough,’ says Athelstan. ‘That he owes you his life.’

Bjørn bows his head, but also shakes it. ‘You are Sansa brother. I fight - with you.’

Jon puts his hand on Bjørn’s arm, and there is a sort of hug that is the hug of men who do not know each other well, but wish to.

‘I am ______ you cannot stay here,’ Jon Snow says.

‘I know,’ I say. ‘We will go south. Take our boats. We know cold, but -’ I show him a shiver, and he smiles and nods. I suppose that the cold is all he knows now. 

‘I _______ ask you something,’ he says.

I feel that I know what it is but let him speak on.

‘I want you to take -’ he looks behind him, where a wild woman and her child sit, huddled in blankets. 

I nod. 

He speaks on, many words. Athelstan speaks them. ‘Take as many as you can. I will keep some of the stronger men here. He says that he wants us to go to Winterfell. That King Stannis marches south, and wishes to take the castle. If Stannis knows that Rickon is alive, he will want to place him there, as the leader of the North.’

I think of Rickon, this silent, quick-eyed boy, and the sorrow and danger I feel in him. Though he has a wolf-sense, enough to know the ways of this castle, enough to save his brother, he is not ready to be a leader. But Jon Snow is ahead of me. Athelstan speaks on for him. ‘I want to place him in your care. I will send word to Stannis that you are coming, and that you should remain at Winterfell with him, if you want to. Until a warden can be found. If Sansa comes, then she will rule until Rickon is of age.’ Jon Snow looks at me, but I do not yet speak. ‘And afterwards, if you will it, I would like some of you to come back, with the strongest of the wild people. Any of your own men and women who wish to come. To help me fight.’

I frown at him. ‘Fight your men?’ 

‘To fight what is on the other side of this.’ And he looks up at the great wall that means that it is never truly night but something glowing and green-blue.

***

‘What did the earl say to my brother? When he won?’ You sat down rather too heavily on the bed.

‘Lord Wylis said that he was still a good fighter in one way, at least,’ said Sansa.

The big earl of this great city was a good host. He had made sure that everyone was well fed and tonight had held a feast for some of you in his fishman’s hall. There was so much food. Shiny metal plates of crabs and mussels and herring and lobster. A pie with pigeons in it. And nuts covered in something hard and so sweet it amazed you. The earl had waved a hand at you and you had carried on eating, more than you had since you were first stabbed. And he kept on eating, so you did. Everyone else had stopped by then, even Torstein, and yet you two kept on going, with everyone watching. Finally even you had to stop, and you told him that he must have been Logi and he said something to Ragnar that made even your darkly watchful brother smile.

You rolled back on the bed, hands over your stomach, with a big sigh. The blankets were thick, soft as long-grown moss. ‘This is a rich man’s room.’ 

‘It is not unlike the rooms at Winterfell,’ she said, her voice soft, lying back next to you.

You dared not quite think it, still, that you might one day live in a castle as great as this one. With this woman, who was strong and wise and all the colours of autumn.

Your wife put her finger on your eyebrow and on your cheek, and you knew that she was drawing along your old scars - the ones made by Earl Haraldsen, long ago. Her eyes were far away. Perhaps she was thinking of the river you would sail up, the one called White Knife. She gave a shiver.

You laid a hand on her back, drew her a little closer. ‘I am sorry about your sister, _raf refr_. We will get to her. She will be safe.’

‘Not soon enough.’

‘I know it is hard, but it is the right thing.’ You put your fingers in her hair, which was still a little tangled from the training earlier. ‘To wait. When Jarl Borg took Kattegat, and Ragnar came back, all he wanted to do was fight, straight away. Even though he had hardly any warriors. I told him we must wait, and we did. He burnt their grain, and Lagertha brought fighters from her own village, and we were able to fight him. And win.’ You rested your chin against the crown of her head. ‘Even the Big Dog says the same. To wait.’

She gave a short sigh. ‘It is not the right name. His name. I could not think of the right name for it. It is a dog that hunts. A dog that works with men.’ _Hound_ , you thought, but you liked Big Dog better and did not say anything.

‘He says a word a lot that I do not understand,’ you said. ‘It is short but sometimes it has another part on the end.’ You spoke it.

‘Oh.’ Sansa looked at you. ‘He is just very rude.’

‘Why? What does it mean?’

‘It means – lots of things. You put it next to other words to show how angry you are.’

That made sense. The Big Dog was always angry.

‘But it also means -’ she gave you a look that was part washed-up sea-girl, part-Freyja. ‘What we do together.’

‘What do we do together?’ You knew what she meant, but you liked hearing her say it. Perhaps she would forget her sorrow for a short while. She stared at you and you looked blank and shrugged.

She pulled herself towards you by the neck of your tunic. Mouth on you, cold and beautiful. Getting warmer.

‘Kissing?’

She shook her head and kept kissing you, opening your mouth with her tongue.

‘What is this word?’ You said another. The Big Dog had said this one a lot, too.

Sansa sighed, before taking your hand and putting her fingers through yours, oars interlocking after a long journey. She brought your hand between her legs. ‘It means this. But not in a nice way.’

You found her, with both your fingers and hers, until there was wetness, the wet ground in a cave. She was only warm here. ‘How can what is between your legs be anything but nice?’ you said. A small, not-all-sad laugh from her that was also a gasp. ‘You are butterwort and meadowrue. You are all leaves and petals. Except when it is your moon-time and then you are battle-bloody, but that is very nice too.’ 

‘ _Rollo_.’ She hit you, a bunched fist on the head, but not in a way that said she meant it.

You already had your face between her thighs.

***

Jon Snow has given us two of his own ships, and I have chosen two strong sailors amongst our men to sail them. We have no slaves anymore. I have made them all free men, with the agreement of the earls and of Bjørn.

I watch as Jon crouches down in front of Rickon, both hands on his shoulders. The white wolf, Ghost, and Dog-With-Beard sit side by side. He speaks quietly and Rickon scratches his knuckles, over and over, before his half-brother places something in his hands. Though Rickon stands very still, he lets Jon clasp him around his shoulders and place his forehead against his own. 

Jon Snow walks over to me, ice-flakes falling like crumbs on his black furs. He watches as Rickon and Osha walk onto the boat, Osha’s hand on his back. ‘It is not safe for him here.’ There is guilt stirred into his voice.

‘No. I make him safe.’

He turns to me. Eyes that are dark mud. ‘Thank you.’

‘If Sansa is not dead, she has a brother,’ I say, meaning that I would bring them together. ‘If dead, then I still do it for Sansa. And for you.’ I wonder how he himself will stay alive here, with only enemies around him, both sides of the wall. ‘It is not safe for _you_.’

He gives a smile that is rueful. ‘Someone has to fight.’ He says something else that I do not understand.

I put my hand on his arm. ‘You are good man. _A_ good man. Strong.’ I wish I could tell him more in his tongue. 

His eyes look deep and sorrowful, and for a moment it is as if my touch has made his life lift off him like great wings, all his adult years, and he is just a little boy. ‘I am _____ a bastard.’ Small, quiet words, with the weight of the nine realms in each one.

I shake my head. ‘No. You be king one day. I know this. You live in our stories.’ I put my hand on his cheek, a bit of his soft beard under my palm. ‘Goodbye, Jon Snow.’ And I leave the man who is a frost-prince, who is weaved into our own words as so much of this land is, and step onto my ship, to head south.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Norse Mythology School** :
> 
> A _vǫrðr_ is a warden spirit accompanying a person through life from birth to death. It could appear in the shape of a small light or shape of the person. A person might feel it through a sense of cold or foreboding - or an itchy nose.
> 
> In the eating contest between Loki and Logi, Logi won by eating the bones and even the wooden trencher the meat came in. It was explained to Loki that Logi was in fact wildfire itself (shout-out to PurpleMoon3 for this one).
> 
>  **Norse Wildflower Seminar** :
> 
> Here's a look at yummy [Common Butterwort](http://www.scandinavianmountains.com/flora-fauna/plants-purple/common-butterwort.htm) and also [Alpine Meadowrue!](http://www.scandinavianmountains.com/flora-fauna/plants-purple/alpine-meadowrue.htm)


	10. Ragnar On The White Knife

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ta to Editor ZoeSong! 
> 
> Little shout-out to Trinuviel for some of this one.

The sky was bright blue, unblinking. Sansa stood, as she had done many times over the last three days, with a winter fox-fur wrapped around her shoulders, staring up at it. Willing a black fleck to appear, to become winged, to bring words.

There had been feasting, and training, and talking with Ser Wylis. He took great pleasure in showing Ragnar his maps and weapons, and though Ragnar did his best to look unimpressed, Sansa knew that he was interested. What didn’t please him so much was the waiting. Ragnar hated to wait, always tapping his knees or glaring at her, as if it was _her_ fault that no message had come back to them. As if she did not want that raven to return with news of Stannis’ whereabouts more than anything. Every time she closed her eyes, Arya was there, imprisoned in a cold part of Winterfell. Sansa had dreams of her stretched out on a feast-table, with Lord Bolton calmly peeling the skin from her finger as he would an apple.

The sky stared back. Sansa shivered and went to find the others.

Many had been training again in the yard, for want of something to do more than anything else. Now they sat, drinking ale around some smoky fires, their talk lazy and bubbling. The ground had become churned mud and frost-sludge. Floki was crouched on the ground, his fingers and arms moving almost as if he was playing a harp. He was telling a story.

Rollo, half-stretched out on a hide on the ground, twisted round as Sansa approached, his face smoothing. She sat down next to him and he touched the end of her fur. ‘More _refr_ by the day,’ he said, and his voice lowered a little more. ‘Soon I will wake up and find a fox sleeping in my bed.’ His smile met hers.

His hair was knotted and tangled and thick as sheep’s wool. Sansa moved so that she sat behind him, and combed her fingers through it. His head was dragged towards her, just a little, as he listened to Floki. 

‘And so Skirnir, the shining servant of Freyr, went on his great horse into Jötunheimr.’ Floki pulled up imaginary reins and bared his teeth a little, to the laughter of the listeners.

Rollo leaned into Sansa a little more with a sigh. The long plait from his temple was uncurling like fraying rope and she had a memory, almost like a taste, of seeing his hair like that long ago in the feast-hall in Kattegat, and wanting to touch it then. She plucked it up as Floki talked on, and began to rebraid it.

Ragnar was there too, listening and not-listening. Looking up at the sky. Today even he had fought a little, ramming into Manderly men with a flash-eyed grin.

‘The two of them took a little ferry over the river Iving,’ said Floki. ‘‘Now we must ride through the night,’ Skirnir said to his horse. ‘We must ride to where the frost-giants live.’

‘And it was daybreak as Skirnir crossed the mountain pass into a wide field of grey grass.’ Sansa let Rollo's finished braid fall as he sat up, picking up Floki’s words. She loved how they did this in their stories, passing it between them as if a cup of wine to be shared, or wool, unwinding amongst hands. Rollo stood, turning around so that everyone could hear him.

The Hound was sitting a little apart. Sansa felt for him – he was mistrusted by the Manderly soldiers, who knew his face only as an ally of the Lannisters, and he knew nothing of the Northman tongue. Other than Ragnar, who seemed to enjoy speaking with him – perhaps the Hound’s short words were more easily understood – he mostly spoke to Sansa or not at all.

She picked up a half-full ale-cup and went over. Ylva had gone ahead of her and was already sitting by his hip, her nose in the air. He looked down at her and folded his arms, before squinting up into the cold sun at Sansa’s proffered cup. Taking the ale without thanks, he drank, very quickly.

‘How’s your leg?’ she asked. ‘I mean, to fight?’

The Hound placed the empty cup on the ground. Ylva darted forward and licked his hand before he could pull it back. He eyed his fingers, and the wolf-cub, before sighing. ‘Not the same. I’m slower.’

‘You still seem to put fear into anyone who faces you.’ She had seen Rollo watching him once or twice, though he had never made him his sparring partner, something she was rather thankful for.

‘Ay, well maybe that’s not the fighting.’ He looked past her at Rollo, who was holding his axe as if a staff, the handle pointed outwards, his words a little louder. As he spoke, Rollo glanced at them both, and at Ylva, who was trying to rub her haunch against the Hound’s hip. ‘What’s he talking about?’ the Hound said, flinging him a look back that might as well have had a clod of earth in it. 

‘He is telling a story.’

‘Some battle where he killed everyone with the fucking shite mongrel axe of his?’ There was curiosity in his voice as well as a faded disgust.

‘No,’ Sansa sighed. ‘It is story about Freyr, one of their gods, and his love for a giantess called Gerd. He sends his servant across the realms to tell her.’ She decided not to mention the flaming sword that Rollo had just described. Or Gerd’s two terrifying hounds, guarding her hall.

The Hound pressed one finger to a nostril, breathed out hard, and released a fast stream of fluid onto the ground, causing Ylva to hop away. Sansa’s stomach curled. ‘Giants?’ he said, and not quietly. ‘Stories are for children to piss themselves scared in their bed.’

Rollo had stopped talking, watching them. Now he came a little closer. ‘I know some words you speak. I not -’ he looked annoyed that he did not know the word, jabbing his finger at his temple.

‘Fine.’ The Hound tipped his chin up, defiant. ‘What the fuck are you telling stories for?’

Rollo spoke slowly, but Sansa was proud of how much he had remembered. ‘They are we - our gods. They live in words. In _our_ words.’

The Hound spat. ‘Fuck gods.’

Floki was whittling a stick, a tight smile on his face. ‘This one seeks out Hel more than most. Perhaps he wants to sleep with her.’ His finger danced like a caterpillar reaching for a leaf. ‘You know, there is a little likeness there. Death on one side of his face already. Perhaps he wants a woman just like him.’

Rollo wasn’t listening. Staring at the Hound, he flipped his axe around, lazily waving the blade of his axe in the direction of his unburnt cheek.‘I cut that part of your face, if you want. To be the same.’ 

The Hound’s eyes narrowed, his grin more grit than mirth. ‘You and your long hair. You like looking like a fucking _girl_?’

Rollo’s axe lifted and he leaned closer. ‘Fuck you.’ He had learnt that well enough. They were a worse influence on each other than either of them realised.

The Hound stood. Ragnar looked up, suddenly interested.

‘Stop it,’ said Sansa.

‘Not my fancy,’ said the Hound.

‘Go shit in woods like dog,’ Rollo said. 

‘Will you stop it? You are behaving like five year-old boys.’ Sansa repeated it in Rollo’s tongue. Except Hvitserk and Ragnvald had never acted like these two. 

Too late. Rollo had already dropped his axe in the dirt and lunged forward, a fist like a boulder. The Hound moved, quickly enough to evade his aim, but his heavy armour hampered him and he half-fell into the mud and slush. 

Sansa could not believe it. She was shouting both of their names and it was as if she wasn’t even there. Heaving himself up again, the Hound grabbed onto Rollo’s arms and they locked heads like two bulls, circling each other. Ylva gave a yowling yelp, doing a leap-dance at their feet.

Rollo grabbed the back of the Hound’s hair and thwacked him, hard, in the forehead. ‘You have hair like girl as I.’

The Hound muttered something and came at him again.

Sansa grabbed Ylva quickly, hoisting her up into her arms. She looked at Ragnar. ‘Can’t you stop them?’

Ragnar shrugged and folded his arms, grinning. ‘It is good to let men fight sometimes.’

‘Perhaps they want her in there with them,’ said Floki, before looking back at his stick. ‘I would bet that several here would not mind seeing that.’

They were still pushing into each other, trying to keep their balance on the slip-sliding ground. Fingers clutching each other’s necks, they made breath-filled grunts that sounded like barn-animals being made to move.

The Hound had Rollo around the waist, and turned and heaved him from his side into the mud. A muted cheer from three shieldmaidens, who then all elbowed each other. Rollo fumbled for the Hound’s belt and pulled him down with him. The shieldmaidens cheered again. Some Manderly soldiers ambled over to watch.

Hampered by each other’s heaviness and the wet ground, the two men’s movements became sluggish and ridiculous. Knees and fists lumped into each other, and there were strange, otherwordly groans that could have come from either of them. 

‘I bet whatever we are fed tonight that Rollo is going to win,’ said Torstein.

‘I don’t know, Torstein,’ said Floki. ‘Hel’s bedmate is not doing too badly. You do not want to go to sleep with a empty belly.’

People started throwing carved pieces of bone and stones into two piles.

That was it. Sansa ran to an awning and found a pot of water. Staggering back with an awkward, limping gait, she put one hand under it and upended the contents over both of them. 

A sudden, shocked silence. Rollo was half-squatting on top of the Hound and got up quickly, tossing his hair. 

The Hound lay on his back, wiping the back of his hand over his mouth and looking at it. ‘Seven fucking hells.’ He made a violent spitting sound, rolling over and gathering filthy puddle-water into his mouth. More spitting and curses followed, as dark as the mud he was covered in. 

Rollo was looked as if he was a First Man, risen up from the earth. His tunic was stuck glue-like to him. Deep scarlet trickled down from a cut on his forehead, mingling with the thick streaks of mud and snow that had melted on him. ‘You are my wife,’ he said to Sansa. ‘Why would you do that?’ He sounded astonished.

‘Just another one of the crazed fucking Stark family,’ said the Hound, who was sitting up now. He spat again. Brown tongue and teeth. 

Sansa refused to feel guilty. Why were they being so rude to _her_ , now? ‘You are supposed to be _allies_.’

Rollo’s eyes were wide, a strange mix of hurt and surprise. ‘You didn’t have to pour piss all over us.’ 

Sansa began to speak, before realising that she could already smell the thin, putrid stench of urine. She looked down at the pot, belly-up in the mud. ‘I thought it was -’

Rollo stalked off, to the growing sound of laughter like roosting crows from the Northmen and women.

***

The sound of the waves is a song to our people, singing us to sleep on long nights at sea. But tonight, Njörun does not bring her dreams to me. I do not sleep. 

It is our second night on the water. We have moved through the Sea-That-Shivers, waves with ice on their crowns, and slowly the air has become a little warmer, though it is still winter. Our own land has a cold that bites in the dark months, but this cold bites deeper. Tonight its teeth cling to my bones and I rise, tread softly through the bodies.

Our many ships move together, oxen or horses with heavy loads. Lights like little night-flies so that we can see each other and the hushed sound of oars, just a few on each ship to keep us within the sight of shore. Jon Snow found us maps of the land, drawn more finely than Sansa’s and with many more town-names, and it is this that Athelstan uses to guide us southwards. There is a Bay of Seals, though we saw none, only grey mountains and dark forests. 

Two pairs of eyes watch me. Rickon, and his wolf-twin. He sits at the edge of the ship, and Dog-With-Beard sits by him, rising a little as I come near. 

‘You not sleep?’ I say, very quietly, crouching down. Rickon looks at me a little longer, and shakes his head before putting his face up to the wide, black sky, which is full of its own bright night-flies.

I look up, too. So many stars. ‘What do they mean to you?’ I say in my own tongue, sitting down so that my legs stretch out. Dog-With-Beard gives a snuffling sound and lies down again, his nose on his paws.

There are the two bright sister-stars, glinting and hard. I think of Bjørn and Gyda, curled up like two little rabbits, and Ragnar and I telling stories to them as the fire grew dim. ‘Ah, now these stars have a good tale,’ I say, bringing my head a little closer to his. I cannot tell if it is Rickon or his wolf that has that keen, musty smell. ‘The giant Þjazi captured the goddess Iðunn, who grew apples that kept all the gods young. Without these apples, the gods became as withered as old trees. They gathered together and decided that the trickster-god, Loki, must have had something to do with it.’

Rickon has gone very still and though I know he cannot understand my words, I am sure that he is listening. 

I put a song into my voice, though it is still softer than the waves against the boat. ‘The gods told Loki that he must fetch back Iðunn, or they would kill him. And Loki did so, but Þjazi was killed during the escape. The gods offered Þjazi’s daughter Skaði any of the gods as a husband as their way of saying sorry. But that is another story.’

I think of Ragnar telling our children of Loki and Skaði and the goat and feel a hoar-frost of sorrow. For Gyda. For Ragnar.

‘And Odin, the All-Father himself, said sorry in his own way. He took the giant Thiazi’s eyes and threw them up into the sky, making these two stars you can see now.’ I point to them, one and then the other, and Rickon stares upwards, a bone-gleam in his hands. It is the gift that Jon gave to him, a carved wolf’s head, jaws closed, fierce and strong-looking, cradled in his fingers.

I make sure that the fur is pulled about his shoulders, and his blanket over his hands and his little stone wolf and all the way up to his chin. ‘Sleep, little _úlfr_ ,’ I say, and he stares up at the stars for a little longer, before closing his eyes. 

I stay next to him, looking at the bear-stars and the deer-stars, and at Frigg’s distaff, thinking of the task that Jon Snow has given me. To find the king named Stannis and to keep Rickon safe. And I think of all the people on these ships who are now in my care. Frigg, give me the fore-sight and the strength to lead.

***

Sansa did not come to you straight away. You had got the worst of the piss off yourself, walking into the freezing cold river a rôst away to rid yourself of the stench. Stalked around wanting to fight more, but everyone just laughed at you. You did not know where _he_ had gone, that cur-shit.

When you and Siggy had fought, you would sometimes disappear into the woods for days. The trees did not mind your words and being hit by you. When you returned, which you always did, Siggy would look like she didn’t care, and like she had not been waiting, or worrying. Now you were her, waiting for Sansa to come back from her days in the dark woods. 

You were sitting on the bed, the candles only stubs, when she finally came in with Ylva at her feet, shutting the door behind her. Ylva jumped up onto the bed and started headbutting your hip. When at last Sansa turned around, her eyes were not sorry ones. You tried to look as Siggy would have done and she just stared at you for a moment, before shaking her head and moving about the room. Taking off her fur, her cloak, putting water on her face, moving candles about.

‘Sansa.’

She drew the long drape over the window.

‘It was just fighting.’

She walked over to you then, fierce-faced, as if she might hit you herself. Her eyes fell to the cuts on your forehead, your knuckles. ‘You could have killed each other.’

‘You think I don’t know how to kill a man? I know. That is not it.’ 

She let out a little blade-edged sigh. ‘Why do you hate him so much?’

‘You are always talking to him.’ At a feast-table, at the training yard, outside the walls. She would be speaking quietly to him, too quietly for you to understand their shared words. 

‘I talk to him about Arya. He spent a year with my sister. I don’t feel like I know her any more, but _he_ did.’

You felt a strange, thick envy that you had never felt with Siggy. ‘He only wanted to help her because he wanted _you_. You are mine.’

Her shoulders dropped and she stared at the wall for a moment. ‘You don’t own me. I chose to be with you – don’t you remember?’ She sat down on the bed next to you. ‘I don’t know why he helped her but he did, and that is important to me. He kept her alive. And he kept me alive, more than once. He seemed to hate helping me, but -’

You were tapping your fingers on your knees. Sansa took them and made you look at her. ‘He is on our side. Helping me now means helping you. And in order to try and take back Winterfell, it would be better to fight with all our best warriors in one piece.’

‘Fine,’ you said, making your voice a great heavy sigh. ‘I will try not to hit him again. Not so hard next time, anyway.’ You glanced up at her from under your eyebrows.

She shook her head at you as if you were one of your littlest nephews and had stolen a fresh-baked loaf. ‘Just stop fighting.’

You winced as she touched your arm at a place that the Big Dog had thumped. You might as well have had a tree fall on you.

‘I have only ever -’ She was about to say something else when there was a knock at the door and a giggle as it opened. 

You sighed. ‘Floki. You are supposed to wait for an answer.’

The sides of his mouth were pulled high as he grinned at you both. ‘I could not help it. Ragnar sent me. A raven has returned.’

You went down together. Your brother was already there, and Earl Borgerson and Earl Hjelmstad, and the Fat Earl, and the Big Dog, who you did not look at. There were great maps on a long table, and a little bark-shaving of paper.

The Fat Earl said _Lady Sansa_ , and spoke on. You watched her straighten, little by little, as she listened, the glow from the fire on her neck like the spill of honeyed mead, and wished that you had not been so stupid. She did not seem to breathe, but you thought you understood.

Sansa gave a small nod and spoke to Ragnar, and to you, and to the room. ‘Stannis moves south. We can meet up with him and join his forces. Ser Wylis agrees to add his army.’ Her words seemed to grow strong as the flames rose. ‘We will march together on Winterfell.’

***

Jon Snow told us of a small bay away from where the enemies of the Starks, and of the king Stannis, might be. We had passed the mouths of two rivers, the second being called the Weeping Water, and sailed our ships into a bay with tall cliffs and one thin path cut into the rock.

It is hard to leave them here. Floki’s ships – or as he would say it, carved by he and the gods themselves – left anchored in a cold sea, and not knowing when we would see them again. 

As we walk, our hundreds of people and our wild people, one after the other up the path, Bjørn catches me up. He has been helping some of the women and children over big rocks that block our way. 

‘Just think, Mother. No one else has seen this land.’

I look behind me at the long line of people like a knotted rope, and do not say anything. I am only thinking of what battles may come, and how we may all fight together.

He looks at me, his breath coming like flour-clouds as we climb. ‘It is what Father would want. And Odin, too. He smiles on us.’ So simple, the words of a young man who does not doubt, who does not wonder. 

And I give him my own small smile as we take the last heavy steps to the top and look down together at the great spread of land beneath us. It is a sight that steals my breath. A long valley, and, far away, the forest that we head for, and the soft-smoked lines of the mountains beyond. It is the North, and it is West-er-os. 

Meili, step-traveller, look on us.

‘Perhaps you are right, Bjørn,’ I say, and we lead our people into this land for the first time.

***

‘I must say, these ships are impressive.’

Ragnar does not turn around at the Fat Walrus Earl’s words. _Impressive_ – the word that the earl had used to describe Rollo, who travels on the ship behind with the princess. Sansa and Ragnar had agreed that perhaps it would be best for the Big Dog and his brother not to be on the same ship. It does mean that he is stuck with the earl, though, and all his fat, slow words.

‘What does he say, Ragnar?’ Floki at his ear.

‘That he likes your boats.’

Floki swings lazily round on a rope, a squirrel-tail grin on his face. ‘Of course he does.’ He shrugs. ‘Size is not always everything.’

‘That is only what little men say,’ says Ragnar, darting his friend a quick snake-look. 

Floki makes a sound like a wave hitting the boat. ‘We would be going much faster if it was not for all those little rowboats behind us.’ It is true - Floki’s ships, though bigger than any that their people have ever made before, are still small enough to sail upriver as well as on the sea. The Fat Earl’s ships are almost all too big, and he had to gather the biggest fishing and trade boats together to move his men. 

They left a day after the raven came. Weapons and supplies became hillocks on the harbours, and Ser Wylis gave a talk as long as a winter night to all of his men. Now, Ragnar feels that arrowpoint-honed keenness again at being back on the water, on this river called White Knife.

At the same time, he thinks of his four little piglets, and his wife. For all the fog-pain over Lagertha, Bjørn and Athelstan and all of his people, he had not thought of his other family enough. Of Aslaug’s eyebrows, like the wings of a great egret, and hair that he could not catch in his fists, hair like peat-water. Of the hay-warmth of his older boys, and the smaller ones’ milk-smells, even Ivar’s perhaps. Of their wide eyes when he told them where he had been, if he could ever sail through the fog again.

No fog here. A clear sky with a few quick gull-clouds, and air like little blades.

He wanders over to the Big Dog, who is staring out at the flat riverbank. ‘You know this river?’

The Big Dog looks as he always looks. Like he has just drunk bad wine. Or piss, Ragnar thinks with a little grin. ‘No,' the Big Dog says. 'But a river only goes one way.’ He looks over. ‘Can’t get lost.’

One way. Yes. Only one way – towards snow and kings and battles, Ragnar almost hopes.

***

‘I have something for you.’

Rollo glanced over at Sansa, and at the gift wrapped in cloth that she holds up to him. He looked broad, ox-like, in his furs, standing looking out at the banks, each new part of land a revelation to him. 

It was not quite right again yet between them. They had kissed, embraced, but somehow there was a hesitancy between them. Not enough said. The fight between he and the Hound had infuriated her, and he hadn’t made it much better afterwards. He mistrusted her, just a little. 

She was telling the truth – or had been about to before Floki had interrupted them. She only loved him. Had only ever known love with him. That was not to say she had not wondered what it was between her and the Hound, at King’s Landing. Wondered why he had wanted to help her when she was just a frightened, defenceless girl. Yesterday, she had tried to talk to the Hound afterwards, but he had only shaken his head at her and said she’d get piss thrown on her head next time. 

Now, Rollo looked at her, both curious and a little wary. She held her palm a little higher and he stepped forward, carefully lifting up a corner of the cloth and unwrapping the object. 

It was a silver wolf, finely-made, its long sleek body only half the length of her little finger. She had gone into the city a few days ago, long before the fight, to have it made by one of the silversmiths that White Harbour was renowned for. Wanting something from her own land to give to him. The silversmith had made it for her for nothing, saying he would be glad to help a true lady of the North. 

Rollo turned it over, looking at it with some wonder, letting it dangle from its thin leather strap.

‘For your wrist,’ she said, and looked at him properly. Hoping for forgiveness, if that was what was needed, and that it would remind him of their own wolf-bond. ‘I love _you_ , Rollo.’ Ylva was gazing up at them both and she picked her up, held the increasingly heavy bundle of soft fur and hard sinew up at him. ‘We both do.’

A hint of sunlight in green forest-moss of his eyes. ‘Thank you, _raf refr_.’ He put his arms around her, the scratch-warmth of his beard close to her ear. A sigh. ‘I am sorry. I will be better.’ He put his nose to Ylva’s nose, and then mouth to Sansa’s mouth. 

The ship heaved and they staggered into each other. Ragnar’s boat was right in front of them, very close. Sansa followed Rollo to the top of the boat. 

‘What is it, brother?’ he called. ‘Why have we stopped?’

Ragnar, clad in his midnight-dark hooded cloak, pointed ahead of them, to the river, which was no longer shining water but a long, winding ribbon of ice.

***

It will soon be time to take Odin to one side and have a quiet word in his ear, thinks Ragnar. Every time they begin to move they stop again. The seer had said that he would not see Ragnar again and at this rate this prophecy was true. The never-dying seer would be cold in his barrow-mound before Ragnar ever got anywhere.

Torstein had joined them on the bank to look at the thick-choked water. ‘This is not my fault, Torstein,’ said Floki, crossing his arms. ‘I made ships to sail in the summer, not _this_.’

Ragnar digs at the crushed ice and frost with the toe of his boot. They have not even reached the fork of the river.

‘What do we do now?’ says Sansa. 

‘I ______ we walk,’ says the Fat Earl. 

Ragnar looks to the sky, looks for Odin, who must be hiding somewhere, perhaps smoking a root-herb and laughing at him. 

The Fat Earl looks at him. ‘We were __________ have to walk some of the way, King Ragnar. We ____ go along the side of the east fork.’

‘Wint-er-fell is that way,’ says Ragnar, pointing west.

‘And Stannis moves from the east,’ says Sansa. ‘We must meet him before we meet Bolton forces.’

Ragnar watches his breath uncurl like Jörmungandr, awakening. ‘Yes.’ He widens his eyes. ‘Of course.’ And he tells Torstein to ask each ship to begin unloading their supplies, and wishes that he had remembered about this land’s long winters.

Sansa does not say anything, just staring at the low hills. A long flicker-flame against the white of the land. Rollo joins her, and they share a look that means that they want the sex that comes after fighting. They have made up, then.

Ragnar wraps the fur that Torstein has given him around his shoulders, brings his hood up over his head, and leads his people on, with all the Manderly men following, into this land for the first time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Norse Mythology School**  
>  Floki and Rollo’s story is of _Skirnir_ ’s journey into Jötunheimr, the giants’ realm, where he has been sent by his master Freyr to tell the giant Gerd, who sparkles with cold light, of his love. He takes Freyr’s flaming sword and rides his horse through a curtain of fire. Gerd refuses to accept Freyr until Skirnir threatens to curse her to a life of misery unless she does so. The union of Freyr and Gerd represents the meeting of sunlight and the frozen earth after winter.
> 
> ***
> 
> The goddess _Hel_ , who Floki mentions before the Rollo/Sandor brawl, guards the realm of the dead also often known as Hel, or Niflheim. Marvellously, she is usually portrayed as half-blue and half-flesh-coloured, including a half-rotted face that is just a little like Sandor’s. 
> 
> ***
> 
>  _Njörun_ is the Norse goddess of dreams that Lagertha mentions.
> 
>  _Meili_ is the lesser-known god of travel – the ‘mile-stepper’, and also known as ‘the lovely god.’
> 
>  _Jörmungandr_ is the serpent or dragon of Midgard.
> 
> ***
> 
>  **Norse Mythology School Constellation special!**
> 
> There are just a few examples of the constellations find their way into Norse mythology. The tale of how the eyes of the giant _Þjazi_ became a constellation is recounted in the _Skáldskaparmál_ section of Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda. The two brightest stars, Castor and Pollux, part of the constellation of Gemini, are assumed to be the _Eyes of Þjazi_. They reach their peak in the sky at midnight in January, hence their association with Skaði, goddess of winter.
> 
> The seer told the Skaði bit of the story in ‘Vikings.’ The gods in compensation offered Skaði the right to choose a husband from among their number, but with the condition that she could choose only by viewing the feet of the gods. Skaði selected the most beautiful feet, thinking that she had chosen the bright god Baldr, but instead found she would marry Njôrð, a god of the sea-coasts. Another part of the compensation was that the gods had to make Skaði laugh, which was accomplished by Loki, who tethered a goat to his own testicles, presenting such a bizarre spectacle that Skaði laughed despite herself. 
> 
> _Friggerock_ (Frigg’s distaff) consists of the three stars that we now call Orion’s belt, and exists in Swedish folklore.
> 
> Elsewhere, deer, squirrel, bear, hawk and serpent are all Northern European constellations.
> 
>  **Old Norse School** :
> 
> Our word for wolf comes directly from the old Norse: _úlfr_.
> 
>  _Rôst_ means ‘rest’ but basically is about a mile.


	11. Ragnar In The Snow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay on this one! Work, etc. And also getting distracted with a cheeky new story, Wolfgirl in Braavos, whoops. Anyway, ta to ZoeSong as always for edits and thoughts.

Ragnar thinks of all their words for snow. New snow, powdered snow, the snow-that-blurs, dog-paw snow. The snow with the hard crust like a pastry, the snow that breaks ankles, skutching snow, the snow that does not melt in summer.

The snow they trudge through now is a thick, dusty, packing snow, a snow that forms great earth-drifts. His people know snow well, but they did not know it would come now, as they walk east, further away from Win-ter-fell, in search of the king called Stannis. 

‘Ragnar,’ says Floki, coming beside him, his voice like snowflakes locked together. ‘I do not understand. What gods should we be praying to now?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘This.’ Floki twists his face up at the white day and makes a rabbit-sound with his teeth and lips. ‘We left Kattegat a month after midsummer, when the mountains were green and our hands were fat with fruit and grain. And now we are here.’ His hands flicker. ‘Do we pray to Od? Gefjun? Or do we look for Skaði and Ullr in the snow? When do we celebrate winternights? Or Jul?’

Ragnar pulls his hood further over his head. ‘I do not know, Floki.’

‘The gods are playing tricks on us. It is a test.’

Ragnar does not answer, but walks on with his friend, who keeps looking for the gods on the cliff tops and behind the pine trees. But Ragnar looks only at the snow.

***

‘Hati the wolf was the son of a giantess who lived in the Ironwood in Midgard, a forest just like this one. All of the her children were wolves, every one.’ 

Bjørn is telling Rickon a story. We have stopped for the night at the edge of the great forest we had seen from the sea-cliff, and I have been walking with Earl Olesen and Earl Edman, seeing that tents are put up. Jon Snow had said we must stay as far from the river to the north as we could, and away from the place called Dread-fort, where Sansa’s enemies are.

‘Now we must look to the sky. The sun and her brother, the moon, travelled across it in great chariots.’ 

As we have walked, under sun and then cold moon, there have been owls and a snow-eagle, small becks that have both talking water and cracked ice. Our people shoot hares and some fat, feathered birds I do not recognise, though there is not enough food. Not for all of us. 

At least there are plenty of trees for firewood. There is a small river and my shieldmaidens wade in up to their knees to pick up fish with their hands, and have to bite their fingers afterwards to get the feeling back into them. I sit down next to Bjørn and take a piece of fish, begin to pick away the bones, listen.

‘But the sun was lazy. She liked to watch the great waves crash on the shore and so she would stay for hours, baking the earth in one place and leave it cold and dark in the other.’

Athelstan is putting the story into the boy’s words, though Rickon seems to enjoy Bjørn’s big arms and the shapes and sounds he makes. As does Osha, sitting between them, her face made more shadow than light from the fire, her eyes on Bjørn like they are limpets or mussels clinging to his skin.

‘And the moon was lazy, and would tie his horses amongst the forest-trees. None of the gods could move them.’ 

I see two bright suns in my son’s eyes and think, for a moment, of Bjørn with his own children, one day. I think of Thorunn, and her body burning on the pyre after Eng-land.

‘One day, the lazy sun stopped right over the mountain of a fire-giant, and Loki saw her. Loki had wanted to get into the mountain to steal the giant’s fire-diamond, and so he needed the sun to move. He brought two wolves, Hati and his brother Sköll, to him.’

Dog-With-Beard looks up. 

‘He fed them some delicious meat and berries.’ Bjørn makes wolf-gobbles, and Osha grins, very slowly.

Dog-With-Beard licks his lips.

‘And when the wolves said they wanted more, Loki said that it was up there, in the sky.’

Rickon looks up, just for a moment, at the clear moon that is like an eye.

‘And when they said they could not get up there, he sprinkled them with magic dust and -’ Bjørn makes a big whooshing sound, and Athelstan waits, smiling. ‘Up they went. ‘I am going after that one,’ said Sköll, chasing after the sun. ‘And I am going after that one,’ said Hati, chasing after the moon.’

I think of the cold north winds giving Sköll strength to chase the sun faster, as he must do every day in the long West-er-os winter.

Bjørn looks around at us all. ‘And that is the end of the story,’ he said, looking suddenly like a boy again. Unsure what to say next.

‘And you tell it very well,’ says Osha, poking the fire, little pine-needles of flame sparking up. ‘I could listen to one every night from you.’ She shows her crooked teeth.

Bjørn looks at me. 

At the same time, there is a strange movement from Rickon. He jerks his head very quickly to the side, as if he has heard something. And then the other side. Dog-With-Beard is standing, legs very straight and stiff, looking into the forest.

Rickon stiffens.

Osha stiffens too, as good as his shadow. ‘What is it, little lord?’ Their word for earl.

I look where he looks, into the shadows that suddenly all look like people. I put my hand on my sword-hilt. Try and see where Earl Olesen and Earl Edman are.

Osha is in front of Rickon, very quickly, kneeling down. ‘Rickon.’

I look again. They are not people. Only trees. I am sure of it.

‘ _Rickon_.’ There is panic and wonder in Osha’s voice and as I turn, my breath is snatched by the fire, by the cold night, by what I see in front of me.

Rickon stands, very still, as if he is his wolf. He has dropped his sticks, and his face – his face frightens me. Bjørn stands up too, a quick, loud movement, then almost steps into the fire as he jerks backwards.

It is only Athelstan who stays where he is, not afraid, watching.

Rickon’s eyes have no green in them, and no black. They are moons.

***

Your wife took a long time to wake. You watched as she finally blinked, little blue pools breaking in the ice. 

‘Time to go, raf refr.’ The tent was empty, everyone else gathering their things, coughing, slapping their hands. Small fires.

She stared at you. It had taken you both a very long time to go to sleep, huddled amongst others, hearing the Fat Earl Manderly snore even in the next tent. ‘I feel like a dead person,’ she said.

You placed your hands between your thighs, where it was warmest. ‘You look like a snow queen. Like Drífa.’

A small smile. ‘Liar.’

Another day of walking. An eagle overhead, which made your wife look up, watch it as if it might bring news. You hung back, waited for her as she caught up. Two slap-marks on her cheeks from the bright wind.

‘How do you do it?’ she said.

‘Do what?’

‘Walk through the snow like it is just grass.’

You shrugged. ‘I am cold, like everyone else. I just try not to think about it. I think about the gods instead. About fate.’

‘What is your fate?’ she said. 

It had always been battles – kneeling on the floor with an axe at your neck, some great king you were fighting. This is always what you had imagined. ‘You are my fate,’ you said, and meant it.

The eagle wheeled again, a little cry curving like a sword-shape in the air, curving like itself, and you saw something else. 

Men, on a ridge. 

You held a hand up. Ragnar was there behind you. ‘Up there,’ you said. ‘Not many.’

Your brother squinted at them, made movements with his hands to the men. The sun made it hard to see, but they just stood, watching. The Fat Earl came up, puffing like a half-dead cart-horse. 

‘Enemies?’ Ragnar asked him.

‘No. Look.’ He pointed further along the ridge at a flag. A cloud came over the sun and you could see what Sansa also saw, her face lifting.

‘A stag,’ she said, and you saw the flames and the red heart. She had told you all a long time ago of the pictures each family had, each house. 

‘Raise the banners!’ shouted the Fat Earl.

You turned and watched two warriors fumble with the pole and the man-fish rise with his spear. And next to it, another one, one that you had watched Sansa stand over as it was made in the big house of Manderly. 

A wolf’s head, teeth bared.

***

They followed the Baratheon forces down a snow-choked gully, with dark cliffs on either side of them. 

‘Do you think it is a trap?’

The Hound was walking next to Sansa, snow on his eyebrows. ‘No. They don’t look like they could fight a fieldful of bloody lambs.’

The Baratheon men did look tired. Defeated, even. Raw, red cheeks and deep hollows under their eyes. She, Ragnar and the others had waited as an envoy had walked down to them to ascertain who they were. Had stared at them with eyes that were the colour of dull stones, nodded, and said to follow them. And since then they had walked.

Sansa was too cold to even shiver. The cold was in the marrow of her bones. In Kattegat, the winter in had been spent indoors, long evenings next to smoky fires, hours of songs and stories that became more alive as she learnt more of their language. She had not been prepared for this. Rollo, a little way behind her with Torstein, did not seem to mind it, though perhaps it was different in his land – the winter came every year and the snows always melted, the Wild Hunt drawing to a close. Here, there was no telling how long it would be. 

‘How many winters have you known?’ she asked the Hound.

‘Enough to know that summer is a lot better.’

More men, up on the ridges, like single fence posts. Watching them as they moved through the gully. ‘Did you ever meet him? Stannis.’ 

He sniffed and kept staring ahead. ‘I wasn’t circling the room at royal parties.’

‘I know that.’ 

‘No. He was mostly holed up at Storm’s End during the rebellion whilst his men starved to death around him. Stubborn bastard.’

‘He will accept us, won’t he?’ And not slaughter them all, one by one, with Ragnar glaring at her until his very last breath. Probably after his last breath.

‘Only one way to find out.’ 

Ylva wasn’t moving. ‘Come on,’ Sansa said to her. ‘I can’t carry you any longer.’ The wolf cub sat down on her haunches, looked surprised at the cold and leapt up again, before shivering as if a great wind was moving through her fur. ‘Ylva,’ she said, and clicked her fingers. The wolf didn’t move.

They stared down at her for a moment. Then the Hound leant down, scooped Ylva up into the crook of his arm, and stalked on ahead of Sansa, leaving great trenches of snow in his wake.

There. In front of him, not far off now, tents were scattered along a valley, with more in amongst the black-green pines. Snow banked deeply against their sides. Just two were a deep red colour, with a small flag hoisted from it, a smaller version of the one that they had seen on the ridge.

Sansa took a deep breath. Once, this would have been what her father had done. Meetings with kings, negotiations, bending the knee. It was all for Arya, she told herself. Arya, and the North.

*** 

‘I want to show you something,’ Athelstan says.

I have returned to our part of the camp, after walking amongst the wild people so that they know I am a kind leader, one who cares. It is a morning so bright with the snow-white that my eyes are already tired.

I walk with Athelstan into the trees. Last night, Rickon had finally blinked and his eyes had lost their moon-colour and were the green of summer pines again. He had been startled to see us, and angry, and had run into the forest with Dog-With-Beard at his heels. It had taken Osha some moments to go after them. I had never seen her look frightened before. We had all stood around looking at each other, the fire the only thing speaking.

I had lain awake trying to make sense of it. A god, talking to him. A standing-dream. He must be a seer, a young one. 

The forest makes the winter’s coldness seem even sharper. ‘I did not believe that it would be winter, Athelstan,’ I say, treading on moss that makes a sound like gnashing teeth.

His cheeks are raw, though he still finds a smile, as if he has a little pocket full of them. ‘I’m not sure I did either.’ He stops. ‘Look.’ He stands by a tree that is like all the others, tall and shivering, printing itself as darkness in a slant along the ground. 

I reach it, let my breath slow, look around.

Athelstan nods at the tree again. ‘Rickon was here, I think.’

I look and I see that it is not quite like the others. There are shapes scratched into the wood, pale lines that feather the bark. A word.

‘What does it say, Athelstan?’

He looks at me. ‘It says _sister_.’

***

A small group stood by the red-coloured tent, with guards behind them. A lady, pinch-faced. A small girl. And a tall, dark-haired man whose expression did not change as they approached. _Stannis_ , Sansa thought. _This is Stannis_. Her heart sat like a heavy lump of porridge in her throat as she and Ser Wylis led the fighters, finally standing just two arms’ length’s away. They stood. And waited.

Stannis simply kept scrutinising them with the same impassive countenance, the finest hint of suspicion. His eyes flickered behind Sansa before going back to her. A stone-grey glance. ‘A raven told me that Lady Sansa Stark was in the North again.’

‘Yes,’ said Sansa, trying to keep her voice solid. ‘She is.’

‘Says who?’

‘I can vouch for her, my lord,’ said Ser Wylis, in a blustery tone. ‘We met when she was young, at Winterfell.’

Stannis’ eyes moved slowly to him and back to Sansa. They had so much weight behind them, as if they were pinning her down. ‘My condolences for your losses, Lady Stark,’ he said. 

Sansa could only nod. ‘Thank you, my lord.’

‘My _king_.’ A woman emerged as the voice did, and one seemed to exactly match the other. She was tall, moved with grace, and - was _red_. Not Sansa’s amber red, but the red of blood, of the innards of sheep, of the heart on Stannis’ sigil. A red cloak, hooded, and darker red hair sweeping over her shoulder. She stood next to Stannis, slightly in front of the other woman, who Sansa had thought was surely his wife. Or maybe _this_ was his wife. ‘The one true king, as granted by the Lord of Light, the one true god.’

There was a sound somewhere, like a snake or trees rubbing their branches together - or like Floki. 

The Heart God – Sansa had heard of him. They worshipped him in Essos – a dark faith, her mother had called it once. She looked back at Stannis. This was his god, too? ‘I am sorry, my – your Grace.’ Was it as easy as that? He called himself king and so he was one? ‘It is difficult to know who is king.’

A small twitch in his cheek. ‘It is not difficult at all. Tommen is a bastard, as Joffrey was before him. I am the rightful heir. Your father declared his allegiance to me.’

It struck her as soundly as the hilt of a sword on her chest, to hear him speak of it. Her _father_. This she had not known. ‘He did?’

Stannis gave an irritated glance upwards, as if a droplet of rain had just fallen on him. ‘Eddard Stark informed me of the illegality of the kingship by letter. He would have supported my claim, had he lived. He, and his House, and all of the North, before it fell to Lord Bolton.’ He looked back at her, a scrape with a flintstone. ‘And you are now the heir to Winterfell. The head of your House. I expect you to do the same.’

They had not discussed this enough, Sansa and Ser Wylis, on the journey here. Ser Wylis had simply said that they would join forces with him, and that he would do the talking. Why was he not doing the talking? She glanced at him, to find him gazing opaquely back at her, as if he did not really know the answer either. Behind her, Rollo was giving her a deep, fierce gaze that said he would split Stannis in two with an axe if she gave him the nod. Ragnar was looking at everyone carefully, but also as if they had been brought for his entertainment at the end of a feast. Floki was stroking the corner of his mouth and gazing at the Red Woman with a look that was hateful and amused in equal measure. 

Finally, Sansa met the Hound’s eyes, grey and steadfast and, to anyone else, a little bored. And he made an almost imperceptible movement with his head, one that no one else would see - the slightest nod.

That was all she needed. Someone to agree. Sansa turned back. ‘Yes, your Grace. I am my father’s daughter. I support your claim.’

Stannis watched her for a long moment. ‘Ser Wylis?’ he said, without taking his eyes off her.

‘I am at one with Lady Sansa, your Grace. I wish to see the North back in its rightful hands, and the South too.’

Stannis looked past her again, eyes travelling far along the rows of warriors. She could hear Ragnar shifting from foot to foot behind her. ‘These are not all Manderly men, Ser Wylis,’ he said.

‘They are not, your Grace,’ said Sansa. If Ser Wylis was going to be useless now, then she would be what she said. Her father’s daughter. ‘They are people from over the sea, from a land that no one in Westeros knows. This is my husband, Rollo. And his brother, King Ragnar.’

The Red Woman’s eyes blazed, then, a luminous flicker as she stared at Ragnar, who was stepping forward with a frankly dreadful bow.

Stannis stared at him. 

‘I can vouch for their strength as fighters, your Grace,’ said Ser Wylis.

A small crease appeared at the corner of Stannis’ eye and disappeared just as quickly. ‘I present my wife, Queen Selyse.’ The dark-haired lady with the pale face nodded, a small, fluttery movement, with deep suspicion etched on her face. 

‘And my daughter, Princess Shireen.’ 

Sansa smiled and gave a slight curtsey to the girl, whose face, she realised, was covered grey, scaled patches. Shireen gave a watchful smile that nonetheless was lit with curiosity and warmth.

‘Hel,’ whispered Floki, behind them.

‘And the Lady Melisandre,’ Stannis said, and the Red Woman’s eyes flared once more. He sniffed. ‘There is much to discuss. You will make camp with us tonight and tomorrow we will talk further. About our allegiance and about Winterfell.’ He gave another suspicious glance to Ragnar and turned on his heel as Sansa began to thank him.

The lady with the sweeping red cloak turned with him. ‘I did not see them in the flames, your Grace.’

‘Well, we’re seeing them now,’ he said as he moved away.

***

‘ _Christians_.’ Floki’s word is spoken as if it could light fires.

‘I am not sure,’ said Ragnar, watching the sparks of their own fire in the mouth of his tent.

‘One god. They worship Athelstan’s god.’

A little pain in his chest at hearing his lost friend’s name. ‘Maybe it is a different one.’

Floki danced his fingers over the flames. ‘How can a god of light be the god for everything? Even Blóðughadda has many gods.’

Ragnar is too full of his own thoughts, even while his belly growls for food. Of this place, of Kingslanding, of this man who says he is king, who looks like he could fight, though perhaps not well. 

‘And that woman. There is darkness in her. And lust for riches. She is a witch. A wand-enchanter, like Gullveig.’

She had not been so bad, thinks Ragnar, the woman the colour of wine. Though her eyes had burned when she had looked at him, and not in exactly a good way. As if she did not like other kings, as much as she did not like other gods.

Floki talks on, words of burnt wood, and Ragnar looks for the light-god in the flames, and sees only Loki.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The snow-words I mostly made up, but was inspired by looking at a site about Icelandic words and another about Orcadian ones (from the islands of Orkney!).
> 
>  **Norse Mythology School** :
> 
>  _Od_ \- a version of Odin, god of summer.  
>  _Gefjun_ \- goddess of ploughing and thus harvest.  
>  _Skaði_ -goddess of winter and snow-shoes  
>  _Ullr_ – God of winter and hunting, and husband to Skaði once she gives Njörd the old heave-ho.  
>  _Drífa_ – daughter of King Snaer; her name means drifting snow.  
>  _Hel_ \- the goddess of Hel, and half of her face is zombiefied.  
>  _Gullveig_ \- a goddess with a lust for gold. More of her to come, probably.  
>  _Loki_ \- the god of fire, as well as the trickster god.
> 
> There is not actually much in the sagas about _Hati_ and _Sköll_ , only fleeting mentions, and which wolf chases which celestial body is interchangeable, depending on what saga you read.
> 
> ***
> 
> ** SONGTIME! **
> 
> Over on Wolfgirl in Braavos, there's a song for each chapter heading, and so thanks to Zip001 for suggesting something to go with this chapter! The beautiful, bare and haunting ['Barefoot' by KD Lang (complete with wolf-howling)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4FkncWeIRs).


	12. Ragnar And The Red Woman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for slowcoach updates! Ta to Editor ZoeSong as always!

‘Who is this king, then?’

Sansa was sitting as straight as she could in Stannis’ tent, her fingers clasped, trying subtly to press some warmth into them. They felt as cold as frost-bound twigs. Perhaps no regal posture in the world would stop Stannis thinking any more of her, though, whilst Ragnar sat the way he did, slouching next to the pit fire with his legs spread out as if he were in his own home, looking rather bored - though Sansa knew that he was working hard to listen to every word as she described her time at King’s Landing, and Stannis’ short responses. And now his attention had turned to Ragnar himself.

‘Ragnar Lothbrok is king of lands to - the North-East, your Grace.’ _I have no idea where_ , she thought.

Stannis was still staring at Ragnar, the smallest frown twisted into his forehead. ‘And does this king want to rule more than one land?’

She would have to lie. As Sansa opened her mouth to speak, Ragnar sat up, a quick, sinewy movement. ‘I like to see – new lands,’ he said, with a grin that sparkled like mountain water.

Stannis gazed at him, before there was a twitch in his cheekbone, as if an insect was there under the skin. ‘Well, now you have seen it.’ His tone was inscrutable. 

Ragnar leaned forward, all energy and lightness – everything Stannis was not - warming his hands on the fire. ‘I think there is more to see,’ he said, as if divulging a secret. Sansa prayed that he would not wink at him.

Floki, who was half-crouched next to Ragnar and staring into the flames, gave a pensive frown. The Red Woman, the Lady Melisandre, watched him. She didn’t seem to blink.

‘See - and then what?’ said Stannis. ‘Have it painted to hang up in your home? A nice story to tell your wife? I don’t think so.’

‘I learn from new places,’ said Ragnar. ‘I like to see how man lives in other lands. We can trade - ideas.’

‘I have all the ideas I need,’ said Stannis, quite quietly.

Sansa couldn’t imagine Stannis being king. He had nothing of the charisma of either of his brothers. How could he stir the blood of men to fight for him? Yet there was something in the hard granite of his eyes that made her think he was utterly determined to get what he wanted. 

‘If you want to fight for us, you must declare your allegiance to the Lord of Light,’ said Lady Melisandre, in her bold, rich voice. Melisandre seemed to be a priestess and an advisor, and though Stannis simply continued staring into the fire as if she hadn’t spoken, Sansa sensed a power in her, heavy as incense.

Fight _with_ you, not for you, Sansa thought. ‘I was brought up with the Seven, your Grace,’ she said. To him, not to this woman. 

‘As was I,’ said Stannis. ‘False gods.’

‘And the old gods,’ she said. Rollo was looking at her, and with him there, she felt she could dare to hold her own. She knew that Rollo couldn’t follow everything that they were saying, but this wasn’t the time to translate. ‘My father prayed under heart trees.’ Stannis had told her he had admired her father – surely he wouldn’t have expected him to change his faith so readily?

‘Superstition.’ If he was insulted, Stannis made no show of it. Though he hardly looked impressed at her outspokenness, either. ‘And these people’s gods?’ he said, with a cursory nod of his head. ‘Who are they?’

‘We have many gods,’ said Ragnar, smiling, as if the answer was obvious.

‘There is only one God,’ said Lady Melisandre from her place behind Stannis. ‘R’hllor, the Lord of Light. He is the one true God, the god of light and love and joy, and the god of darkness and shadows.’ Floki spat into the fire and moved his eyes up to her, the dark marks on his face like the flame-blackened streaks on wood. She stared back.

‘And this one.’ Stannis nodded into a dark corner, where the Hound stood, his head almost touching the roof of the tent. He was the only one who had not sat down, and his stance had remained tense. ‘You choose to have the brother of a man who raped a princess and killed her children? A man who guarded the Lannister usurper?’

The Hound didn’t even flinch.

Sansa swallowed. ‘He is with us now. He helped my sister, who we think is still alive, and he has helped us.’ She straightened again. ‘He is not his brother, your Grace. As you are not yours.’

Stannis’ eyes flicked to hers, dagger-quick, and she prayed that she had not made a mistake. ‘I’ll hear it from him,’ he said.

For a moment, there was no sound. _Gods, please answer him_ , Sansa thought.

‘Ay, I’m not my brother,’ the Hound said from the corner, an irritable scratch to his voice. ‘But I’ll not swear to any man. Or any fucking Lord of Light. Had enough of that already.’

Stannis’ tone was a little sharper. ‘You blaspheme to do so.’

‘Got a problem with that?’ 

‘I’ve got a problem with insolence. I’ve burnt people alive at the stake for less. It looks like you’ve had a taste of that already.’

The Hound went still.

Stannis drew his bottom lip into his teeth, his eyes travelling all the men in the room. Settling on Rollo, who sat beside Sansa a little stiffly. ‘Do you not think it unwise, Lady Stark, to have married into a family who cannot help you? To not have waited for a match that would strengthen your claim?’

Rollo sat straighter. He had understood enough. ‘I am good husband. Fight for her.’ 

Sansa felt a low-burning pride for him. ‘They can help me, your Grace,’ she said. ‘They saved me. And they will fight with me. And we – and House Manderly - will fight with you.’ 

‘They are gifted warriors, your Grace,’ said Ser Wylis, who was squashed in a chair too small for him in the corner of the tent. ‘Surely that is more important.’

Stannis hardly seemed to hear him, looking impassively at Sansa’s sword, which hung from her belt. ‘It is very unseemly for a woman to fight, Lady Stark.’

‘Not in their lands, your Grace.’ And not in _mine_ , she thought, imagining for just a moment, her sword in the flesh of a Bolton man. ‘I cannot change my faith, your Grace,’ she said, with more boldness than she felt. ‘You have our fighters.’

Stannis’ eyes were two stones that had not seen the sun. ‘It is you who needs me, Lady Stark, not the other way round.’

***

‘Ragnar, we must not stand alongside these people. They are of a dark realm.’ Floki is a little gnat caught in Ragnar’s ear. 

They stand in deep snow made of powdered flakes. Ragnar makes deep trenches around him, trying to remember the sun-month in which they left Kattegat, its long-stretching days and smells of hay. Sansa has explained that Stannis is not yet convinced of their loyalty. It has been agreed to rest for the night and speak again in the morning. 

Ragnar admires the princess’ backbone, straight as her sword, when she speaks of her own gods. Even though he knows she likes his own, just a little. Perhaps there is just no room for one more. 

‘I won’t change my faith,’ she says now, hugging her wolf, shaking, looking more like a girl again. As if it had taken all her strength to speak to Stannis just now. ‘Not even for Winterfell. It would insult my father.’

‘Do not, Blódughadda,’ says Floki, with a quickness that surprises Ragnar. 

‘We have worked with Christians before,’ Ragnar says, thinking of Ecbert and his smiles, though they were tarnished if you looked closely enough. ‘We did not _all_ agree to become Christian just as they did not agree to worship our gods.’ He glares at his brother, who does not notice, for he is gazing away from them.

‘That woman is a seiðr,’ says Floki. ‘She has snared this king-wanter. He does not have his own mind.’

Ragnar sighs. ‘Why can all of our gods not just get along?’

‘He needs you.’ The Big Dog’s words, behind him, are like snapping bones.

‘What do you mean?’ Sansa says to him, in her own tongue.

The Big Dog sniffs, speaks, and Sansa translates. ‘Stannis might pretend that it is you who needs him, but it is the other way round. His fighters are weak. They’ve been long in the snow. We’re fresh blood.’

Ragnar thinks of the faces of the warriors who watched their arrival into this camp. It is true that many of them look like the cold has been eating them. 

The Big Dog speaks again. ‘He'll say not, but he needs a Stark in Winterfell as much as you want to be there,’ says Sansa.

‘Then perhaps we will find another way to tell this king that we fight together, not for his burning god.’

Floki scratches his nose and nods. Sansa tries to make herself look a queen again, swallows, also nods.

Rollo is staring into the forest as if Mimir himself might walk out from the trees. He half-looks round, and dips his head. 

***

Your brother poked at you for being Christian, yet again. As if it had not been a good act, what you had done, standing in the cold river, being pushed down by the man in the cloak. Hugged by him. By being baptised you had made it easier for Ragnar to work with the Englishmen. How did he forget this?

As if your brother himself was not interested in the Christian god, always asking Athelstan about him even though the stories were not interesting, did not have giants or dragons. It was not clear whether this Stannis-king was a Christian. There were no crosses. No gold. But if you could be baptised once and not be punished by the gods, perhaps you could do it again.

***

‘It is nice to meet another princess, Lady Stark. I have never met another one before.’

‘Sansa. Please call me Sansa.’

Sansa had been invited by Princess Shireen into her own tent – Queen Selyse had looked at them both darkly and left, a flutter of winter leaves. Lady Shireen was perhaps ten and two, though her small frame made her look younger. But she had keen, inquisitive eyes and a boldness suggesting that she did not take after her mother.

She sat with her legs folded under her, and brown hair falling flatly down, partly concealing the patched skin of her cheek and neck. ‘I’ve never met anyone young, really,’ she said. ‘Just grown-ups.’ 

‘You have – no brothers or sisters? Or other relatives?’ Sansa asked. Her cousins were Joffrey, Marcella and Tommen, but perhaps she had never been to King’s Landing.

Shireen looked at her simply. ‘Just me.’ There was a strange, solemn silence.

‘Well, I am very pleased to meet you, too,’ Sansa said. 

Shireen gazed at her for a moment longer, before shifting a little nearer, her eyes brightening. ‘And do you really fight?’

Sansa looked down at her sword. ‘I have been learning for some time. I have not had much chance to fight a real enemy yet.’

‘There are woman-knights in some of my books,’ said Shireen. Her lip curled up, a little grin bringing warmth into the disfigured side of her face. ‘You are just like them.’ 

‘I’m sure that I would like to be.’

‘I like your hair,’ Shireen said, her eyes darting to Sansa’s braided sides again. ‘Could you do mine like that?’

Sansa smiled, and leaned forward, just a little conspiratorially. ‘Of course I could.’

***

Ragnar walks outside, to get the feeling back into his toes before he can try to sleep. Though there is a part of him that is like a hunting dog or a deer in this place, ready to move at any moment, and perhaps sleep will not come tonight. 

As he rounds the back of the tent, she is there, outside his tent, as if waiting for him. The Red Woman. He walks a little further away, and she follows, stands before him with her arms folded.

Ragnar cannot help doing what he always does in front of beautiful women, which is to bow his head and become like a naughty child, though when he looks up again, she is staring at him just the same, not amused. Not like Aslaug, or Lagertha, or any other woman he can think of. Women have always liked him. 

‘You do not like us,’ he says, pretending to look hurt.

‘I do not know you.’

‘Who do you know?’ He lets the question sail out on a grin.

‘The Lord of Light. And my king.’ 

Not that little girl with the skin like sackcloth, he thinks. Or the king’s odd wife, who is like a starving bird. ‘Not many friends, then,’ he says.

‘I do not need friends.’

He smiles. ‘That is -’ he wants to say _a shame_ but does not know the word. ‘That is sad.’

She does not smile. Her face is like smooth stone and glass. Eyes full of night-magic. ‘If you are a king, then your blood will be strong,’ she says, stepping closer, talking as if he were not there, or cannot hear her. ‘But I do not feel it. Not yet.’ Her eyes are caves.

‘I am sure I feel – a little something,’ he says, and flicks her a tiny sex-smile. This woman knows sex, sex with many men – and women. He is sure of it.

She glares at him.

‘What?’ he shrugs. ‘You like sex with kings.’ 

‘With true kings. I do what the Lord of Light _________.’ A word like _wants_. Commands, maybe.

‘Then your Lord is very -’ he wants to say _demanding_. ‘Wanting.’ He widens his eyes, puts spring air into his voice. ‘It must make you tired.’ Her stare is dark and it burns. Fine. Ragnar has had enough sport. ‘I am going to bed.’ He turns, speaks back over his shoulder. 'If you are not coming, then go and find some other king to sleep with.’

***

You did not sleep much, though you gave Sansa all the heat you had, felt her draw it from you as she wound herself into dreams in this cold, too-soon winter. Then you rose, walked into the forest.

You kept thinking about the Red Seiðr, who was like blood mixed with fire poured into a woman’s shape. A while ago, you might have looked at her the way that you looked at Siggy. Thought more about what was under that cloak. Now you liked your flames softer, and shaped like your wife.

But her eyes had power, and you could sense the dark charms under her skin. And the way that she looked at Sansa, as well as at you all – a danger that you could smell like the kill-scent of a wolf or a bear. She would not stop at death, you thought, if you and everyone else got in her way.

As you came out from the trees again into the moon’s cold, hard light, she was there, in front of you. As if she had been waiting. Her eyes were like dark rocks that had fire in their core. You did not know the word for _red_ in her tongue.

You walked up to her and she did not blink. Stared down at her. Could taste a danger like salt and ashes in your throat. 

‘You are strong,’ she said. ‘As strong as your brother. Maybe more.’ Her eyes travelled over you, as if you were hills and mountains, as if you were a map.

You could not smell her. It was as if she was almost not there at all. ‘Your one god,’ you said. ‘What want he?’

She said a word that you do not know. Another, longer. You shook your head. She stepped closer, and the breath that swirled out of her mouth was not all pale, but wreathed with darker lines. She placed her hand flat on your chest and you felt a white, heavy heat over your heart.

‘A sign,’ she said.

***

Forest surrounds us, wraps us in its night. I think of Víðarr and his silence, and of Rickon’s own silence. He has still not spoken, though he has put his words on the trees. A word. Bjørn had reminded me that there was another sister, younger than Sansa. Perhaps it is she who Rickon senses. I have asked the gods to show me a sign that Ragnar is alive, but they have stayed quiet, kept their shoulders turned. 

A snapped twig and Athelstan is there, with a smile and the burnt wing of a small wood-bird. There is more food here at least, though the walking is made slower by the twisted roots and tight-hugging trees. But slowly we move forward, and before long we will be in the mountains again on the other side of this great forest.

I pull off the small bit of meat with my teeth. ‘I am ready to accept that they are dead,’ I say to him. ‘That it is I alone who must lead. With the earls, of course.’

He smiles again. ‘Of course. But I am sure that they are not dead.’

‘How are you sure? Does your god tell you so?’

‘No, not exactly,’ he says. ‘But I have faith. And my faith in Ragnar is strong.’ His words are always so simple, light as bark-shavings, and yet so firm.

I lick my fingers, throw the bird bones down. ‘Do you think your god and mine would get along?’ I say, putting my hands under his cloak, finding his skin. 

He takes in a little breath at my hands on the skin of his stomach, takes a step towards me. ‘It depends which ones,’ he says. ‘I feel that he and Odin are brothers. Or cousins, maybe. As Ragnar and I are. Loki, perhaps not so much. There are not many tricksters in the written word of God. Apart from Satan, but he is quite different.’

‘I do not think there are tricksters amongst Sansa’s gods, either,’ I say, and pull him closer to me, my hands, which still have the grease of the cooked bird on them, slipping round and into the curve of his back, down other curves. ‘But it is good to be a little playful sometimes.’ 

***

Sansa awoke feeling as if she was under a blanket of heavy snow. Rollo was not there. No one else was in the tent apart from Floki, wrapped in a fur and sitting on his heels, who was stroking Ylva between her ears and watching Sansa at the same time. ‘Good morning, Blódughadda,’ he said, in not more than a murmur.

It was always hard to judge what mood Floki was in – darkly angry, or about to burst into giggles. She wondered how much he blamed her today for taking them into the ice-white heart of winter. But this morning he just looked sad and rather haunted, his thoughts elsewhere.

‘Do you miss Helga?’ she said, very carefully. She was lucky, being here with Rollo. Most of the warriors were without their families, though some had found their way into the beds of willing shieldmaidens along the journey who were happy to find ways to keep warm at night. 

Floki gave an unhappy smile. ‘I do miss Helga,’ he said, his words the beginning of a slow, lamenting song. He looked at the back of one hand. ‘And I miss my daughter.’

Sansa thought of Angrboda’s solidity and warmth – named after the giantess, there was a density to her bones that made her almost believe that there was giant’s blood in the girl. Sansa shivered. There’d been talk of giants here, on Westeros, once. Maybe this place was not much different from Kattegat and the Northern lands.

‘I’m sure you will see them again,’ she said.

Floki’s eyebrows arched like wings. ‘How can you be so sure? Have you been talking to your gods?’ He only sounded a little bitter.

‘I am just – I am sure you will.’

Torstein was suddenly there, pushing the flaps of the tent door away. ‘Sansa, you had better come.’

‘What is it?’ 

‘It is Rollo.’

She followed Torstein between the tents, with Floki not far behind. ‘Torstein, what is happening?’

‘He is being __________ again.’ 

Floki made a strange, furious sound and pushed past Sansa to move ahead of her.

‘What? What is it?’ She not know the word. Sansa almost stumbled in the snow, before picking herself up and weaving her way through a mass of men – Baratheon warriors, Manderly men, and finally her own. And then she saw what they were all looking at.

‘Perhaps this king is right,’ said Floki, ahead of her and turning back, his voice dark-stewed. ‘You have not married the right man. Your husband is – he does not care. He insults his gods.’

Rollo was standing, shirtless, his skin dark against the white of the snow, his wreathing tattoos darker. His face was calm, and when he saw Sansa it lifted just a little, as if the wind had come over it. Next to him stood the Lady Melisandre, and she was holding a flaming torch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ta as always for reading as always! Comments much loved!
> 
>  **Norse Mythology School** :
> 
> A _seiðr_ is the Norse word for seer, which also meant sorcerer and shaman – in Norse culture, they were mostly women, although ‘Vikings’ the show of course has a male seer. Unlike with Melisandre, it was a communal effort, practised with other women. Female seers often had a wand and practised sex-magic. 
> 
> _Mimir_ is a Norse god of knowledge and wisdom.
> 
>  _Víðarr_ is the god of the forest, silence and revenge.


	13. Ragnar And The Burning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big thanks to **Zoesong** for editing and plotting help, and also a massive shout-out to **Jillypups** for awesome and essential ideas which are in here. 
> 
> This chapter is for **JMtrue** , who asked for one in time for Christmas (phew!), and also for **impossiblewanderings**.

The flame held in the Red Seiðr’s hand was tossed about by the winter wind. And then there was another flame, the flame that was your wife’s hair, as she drew her hood away from her head and stared at you. Her mouth dropping open.

It meant nothing, to claim loyalty to this god. This red god was Loki and Logi as much as it was the Red Woman’s. They would not mind. You felt their will, thick-stirred into your blood. Their voices in your ears.

Sansa began to move towards you and at the same time the Red Seidr began to speak. She said many words, some of which you could understand – _man, path, Lord of Light, light again, dark_ -something. She was speaking them to everyone who stood around, and everyone listened.

The Stannis-king stood by, black clothes flecked with snow, his eyes flat and dark. Around you, his men, who were pinched-faced and tired. Who looked like they would pull knives on each other if they did not find more food soon. Who did not much look like they believed in this Red God.

Ragnar was biting down on a fingernail and staring at you, his eyes like two ice-picks, and you knew what his face meant. Floki looked ready to kill you – you would have to deal with that later. The Big Dog, a head above most, had an odd face – full of fear, and anger and perhaps a sort of wonder, too.

Sansa was there, at your arm. Ylva at your feet. ‘Rollo, what are you _doing_?’

‘No, Sansa. It is alright. It is what I want to do.’ For _you_. Her eyes were wet. ‘Go and stand with the others,’ you said, gently. She pulled at you some more - sometimes when she did that you went very easily, something tugged in the wake of a boat, but not today. ‘Go,’ you said again, not looking at her. ‘It will be over soon.’ You nudged Ylva away a little with your boot.

Sansa was pulling at you, though it would take more than your princess to make you move now. 

‘ _Go_ ,’ you said again. Pushed at her with your elbow.

There was a sound from Sansa like a bird and a lamb, and one from Ylva too. You stood tall, staring past everyone now, eyes on the far-away mountains.

Cold water for the Christians. Fire for these dark fire-Christians. And stories and feasts and magic and dreams from your gods, who knew what you were doing, who looked at the palms of their hands and read your life-path in them.

The Red Seiðr stepped forward and you felt the heat of the flame, not yet touching you, still cover your skin like a coat. You glanced at her as her words stopped, nodded. Held your arm out. She lowered the torch, speaking again, a fog-breath coming out of her mouth. The flame met your arm.

A dagger-pain. Fire-mouths eating you. You looked for Sansa, and she was not there.

***

The snow fell, a flake at a time, enough space between each one for Sansa to fill the air with her gasping breaths. She felt sick with fury, and disappointment, and hurt.

Rollo had allowed himself to be burnt. _Burnt_. He had pushed her away, held his arm out willingly, let that woman talk of faith and paths and she had put the torch against his arm and his face had hardly changed. 

Behind her, the Hound had bent down, retched.

And now she was kneeling too, a little way from their tents, her fingers digging into the snow. A cold that burnt. She swore she had heard Rollo’s skin sizzle. 

‘Lady Sansa?’ Princess Shireen was there, cowled in a dark-blue cloak, her cheeks raw with cold, her eyes large. Ylva trotted to her feet, and Shireen looked down at her, curious and a little nervous.

Sansa tried to calm her breaths into the smoothness of snowdrifts. ‘I am alright.’ She glanced up at the girl. ‘Thank you.’

‘Are you angry with your husband?’

‘I am.’ Sansa’s tongue felt thick in her throat. She had not asked him to do anything. They had not discussed it. He had simply decided, and gone to the Lady Melisandre, and told her to burn him.

Floki had wandered near to them, picking at a stick, kicking things. She could feel the anger rising off him like steam.

‘She is a terrible woman,’ said Shireen. ‘She has told Father many things that I am sure are not true. She doesn’t like me very much.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I don’t believe the things she says.’ The princess screwed her nose up as a flake fell on it, and squinted upwards at the flat, grey sky. ‘She tells me that I ask too many questions.’ She looked down at Sansa again. ‘I like the Seven better.’

‘There are many gods.’ Sansa glanced at Floki. ‘I know that now more than ever.’

Floki seems to sense her words and looked over. Sansa told him what she had just said. ‘Rollo does not think so,’ he said, coming closer. ‘He just wants one who can do everything at once.’ He tugged the twig in two and threw the pieces down. Ylva darted over in hopping leaps and began gnawing at one of them.

And then Rollo himself, dressed now, apart from his forearm, was striding through the snow towards them. For a moment Sansa remembered him doing that once in the forest above Kattegat, finding her shivering after seeing a man beheaded on Ragnar’s orders, surprising her with his warmth. When she first started to really wonder about him. And now she was married to him, and he had surprised her in a way that made her stomach curdle.

Floki’s face turned into twisted tree roots at Rollo’s approach. ‘Come, little one,’ he said, in his own tongue to Shireen. ‘I will take you back to your tent.’

Shireen looked at Sansa. Sansa had forgotten how frightening Floki might look to an outsider, especially now with his angry smile and the markings on his face streaked and faded. ‘It is alright,’ Sansa said. ‘He will look after you.’ 

Floki walked up to Shireen, and put his hand out towards her face, a movement like a tendril uncurling after winter. ‘Light and dark,’ he said, very gently, as if a thought was uncurling too. 

Shireen jerked her head backwards rather quickly, her curiosity turning to fear, before Floki showed her the little curved stone that had appeared in his hand. She grinned.

‘He will take you back. I must -’ she glanced at Rollo, who stood behind them now, waiting.

‘I understand,’ said Shireen, quickly, and followed Floki towards the tents. 

Sansa was still kneeling in the snowdrift. She looked up at the sky. Clouds were beginning to tug together like wringing hands. ‘Why did you do that?’ she said, just loud enough for him to hear.

‘I thought you would be happy.’ He was there beside her, crouching down.

Something snapped in her, a tiny lake-slate. ‘Happy? That you – your arm -’ she turned her head to look at it, and found that she could not. Not quite. ‘You would do that to your arm -’

‘ _Raf rafr_.’ Rollo’s voice was plain, but she could hear the edge of anger in it. He clasped his hands, bowed his head in a quick, frustrated movement. ‘Why does no one understand? I let the Christian god _baptise_ me’ – that word again, the one Floki had said. ‘And I let this one. If he wants a sign of faith, this king that you need to help you get your home back, then I have given it to him.’

‘But – your gods -’

‘You have been listening to Floki too much. He does not know how the gods work any more than I do. I know my gods. I know that they are there, always watching and they hold me in their hands, and you, and this little thing.’ He nudged Ylva, who was whining at his ankles, gathering the fur under her chin in his fingers. ‘Odin and Thor and Loki, they all disguise themselves to gain something, to become stronger. It does not mean anything. Not to me.’

Sansa forced herself to look at his burns. The skin on the side of his forearm from the bone of his wrist to his elbow was a long streak of crimson, wrinkled in places as if it had been gathered by a hand. There were two black patches, as if he was charcoal. The rest of it glistened horribly. She felt bile and a small sob rise in her throat at the same time. ‘Doesn’t it hurt?’ she said, nothing more than a whisper.

‘Yes, it hurts. But I do not care. It is no more than a dagger in my side. Or anything else I have had. It will heal.’

The Hound’s scars didn’t heal, she thought, and wondered, not for the first time, how long the Mountain must have held his brother in the fire. She shuddered. ‘Your tattoo is gone.’ It seemed to have sunk under the skin, like something far underwater.

‘I will get another, somewhere else. Maybe I will get a little fox.’

Sansa felt a hot, dark pain in her ribs, and let out a breath. 

‘Do you not understand that I did it for you?’ he said again. ‘For your family?’

The clouds wreathed together. ‘I do,’ she said, feeling something loosen in her. She held onto his other arm, skin that was not wounded, burnt, and wondered if she could ever do such a thing for him. The same sort of sacrifice. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, in nothing more than a whisper.

‘Lady Sansa.’ A brittle voice that could only be that of Stannis.

Sansa stood up quickly, her knees stiff with the cold, and Rollo rose with her. Stannis stood a few paces behind them with two guards. She wiped her cheeks – it would not do good to look weak now.

Stannis stared past them to the mountains. ‘You have made a show of faith. It is not what I expected.’ He looked at Rollo, a brief appraisal that was neither disdainful nor approving. ‘But it is just one man.’

Rollo took a deep, slow breath, one that only Sansa would hear, and she knew that she would not let his act mean nothing.

She took a step forward. ‘ _You_ are one man, your Grace,’ she said, watching her iced breath curl from her. ‘The Lady Melisandre must feel that your belief is strong enough to lead you to the Iron Throne. Rollo is my husband. His -’ she tried not to swallow. ‘Faith means we all join you.’

Above them, a raven made a cracking, bent-backed call.

‘It is enough,’ Stannis said, and his eyes flickered to hers. ‘For now.’ He began to walk away, but half-turned back. ‘Tomorrow we move towards Winterfell.’

***

Ragnar listens to his heart, its steady, slow feast-beat. He thinks of the many feasts that he has had, as king, as earl, when Haraldson was earl, as a young man, as a child even, though they were not exactly feasts then, with only his family and the goats around him. He did not know - as a boy who played tricks on his brother, who tried to tie his own bollocks to those of a goat as Loki had done, who learned quickly how to make the right sorts of faces at the prettiest girls - who he would become. 

He did not feel so much like a king at this moment, in the hard snow, surrounded by many men who were not his own people. With a foreign princess, and a brother who would do anything to be the Thor of the story. But – he has to hand it to Rollo – it was enough. The Red Woman must like the thought of him in her bed, to burn him so lightly in the name of her god. And Stannis-who-would-be-king gave the order to move. 

Ragnar had never seen so many warriors at once. He had stood with Torstein on a hill, watching them march – his own, Ser Wylis’ fishmen, and the Bar-ath-eon men, led by their red flame-flag, though it did not seem to give them strength. They have seen much winter already, and he wonders how long it will be before his own people have that look, heads down, bent into a wind that is not as fierce as it could be, as if they are ready to meet Odin, or their own god. 

King-Stannis had spoken to as many as could hear him, on a horse that looked too thin. Ragnar would have shouted more, and made his eyes flash. It did not make the hearts full of fire-rage. On today’s march west, he made sure that he saw as many of his own men and women as he could, spoke to them, held their arms. Made sure that they were ready, even if Stannis’ men were not.

A sound outside, and Ragnar halts his breathing, listens. A birdcall, he thinks. Not a raven, or an owl, but then who knows what birds fly above this great land, with its many men, and its kings.

He thinks of the seer. ‘One last time,’ he had said, as if they would not see each other again. He stared up at the roof of the tent, and the frost that had begun to harden there. Perhaps the old man knew something about this land that Ragnar did not. Or perhaps he saw his own death coming, after a hundred years of talking and not-talking with the gods.

A sound again. This time Ragnar sits up, finds his sword as easily as he might his knees, or his heart. The sound is not that of a bird, but of air blown against a cupped hand. A man pretending to be a bird.

***

There was shouting and you moved from dreams of wolves with singed fur to the cold of night and Sansa with her hair sticking up, listening, her hand finding yours.

You both rose, quickly. Horses, neighing in a way that sounded like fear and death. Too much light for this dead hour.

Outside, more of your people were moving, supple as fish in a stream. Ragnar was further up, putting a finger to his lips, waving warriors forward or to the side. You nodded to him, led a trail around the back of the camp, running quickly towards the far tents, which were burning. Bar-ath-eon men staggering out, as if sleep weighed down their bones, some men bringing the fire with them, on their clothes and in their hair. Screams.

In the dark it was hard to see enemies. You almost cleaved a fishman in two before Sansa stopped you. 

Ahead, near a tent that was only just beginning to burn. Two men, just shadows, but moving as one, as if strung together. You dodged the stumbling warriors coming out of the tent, jumped over a rock to come down upon one, and had your hand around his throat before he could even cry out. You kicked out at the other so that he fell, and at the same time Sansa was there, an angry gasp-cry coming out of her at the same time as her sword moved. The man yelled and went down, clutching his leg.

You had bashed your axe-hilt into your own man’s forehead before he could try and get at you. ‘Put your sword at his neck,’ you said to her, thinking, _my shieldmaiden-wife_. 

She nodded, her chest rising and falling very quickly and her sword, the one you had had made for her, glinted in the firelight as she carefully lowered it. 

Around you, the cries of the men were beginning to separate. Perhaps other enemies had been caught, perhaps not. 

Torstein ran up behind you, his eyes travelling between the two captured men. ‘They are gone,’ he said. 

It was not a battle. Just a few men, with a cunning leader who had made the sky grey and blood-red and thick-choked with smoke.

‘Here,’ you shouted. ‘Ragnar.’

Stannis was there first, his face looking like it had been scraped with charcoal. He walked up to the man who now knelt in front of you, his temple bleeding. ‘Who did this?’ he said to him.

The man spat and you put the flat of your blade against his neck, turned it just a little. The man said two words. The second was a word you had learnt quickly enough, being here. _Snow_. The other you thought about, and then remembered. The man married to Sansa’s sister. Behind you, your wife’s breath caught.

There was the smell of burning meat. Ragnar joined you, and the Red Seiðr behind him. ‘The food stores have been torched. Horses killed,’ he said, and Sansa spoke his words in her own tongue to Stannis. 

Stannis was not your brother. He did not smile at bad news. He did not rage, either. His face was the side of a sheer mountain. ‘Put those fires out,’ he said to a fighter near him.

The man looked at him, tired. “Yes, your Grace.’

Stannis looked at you, and you understood his words well enough. ‘Kill one. Keep the other.’

The Red Seiðr stared at you, eyes as sharp as a raven’s, and turned, saying something to Stannis. Sansa took in a breath and looked at you, her eyes odd.

‘What is it?’ you said. 

Your wife did not look like she wanted to tell you. ‘She said it was not enough. That - you were not enough.’

A dark, deep feeling in your belly. Something small and very quiet. You raised your axe, and put it in the chest of the man in front of you. His choking was the sound of a small stream under ice.

***

‘Ramsay Snow,’ said Stannis. ‘I will kill him.’

Sansa did not think more snow was possible. Her mother had spoken of it, of winters where snow that fell on snow, cold blankets of it that buried everything in sight, flattening fires, laying waste to farms, killing.

And now, after a fitful half-night’s sleep, she had woken to more of it, a snow that stifled the land, banking up to the tents that had not been burnt to shreds in the night. 

She and Rollo had found Stannis staring upwards, as if cursing the sky. ‘Yes, your Grace,’ she said to him now, wondering if Rollo, or Ragnar might get there first. Or even herself. She had stabbed the second man in the calf, felt the blade dig in, snag on his muscle. Stannis had kept him alive to find out more of Winterfell, and now the snow was so heavy that they could not move.

‘Your Grace.’ One of his own men was there, gaunt-faced. All the Baratheon men looked haunted. Some had been killed in the fires made by Ramsay Snow and his men, and others held blackened limbs. His Lord of Light had only brought flames of destruction.

‘What is it?’

‘I bring -’ the man swallowed.

‘Well, out with it,’ said Stannis. ‘It cannot get worse.’

The way the man hesitated again made Sansa realised that it could. ‘Some of the men, your Grace,’ he said. ‘They have deserted.’

Stannis did not blink. ‘The North-eastmen?’

Sansa felt a little flare of anger at his assumption. All of Ragnar’s people were here, as were Manderly men – except that Ser Wylis had lost one tent to the fires, and several men with it.

‘No, your Grace. Your – your own. They have taken the horses. They must have gone before dawn.’

There was a silence. Stannis seemed not to breathe, as if the snow had coated him, too.

Lady Melisandre had been standing a little way off, listening, and now approached. Sansa couldn’t look at her. She had burnt Rollo’s arm.‘Your Grace, there is an answer,’ she said. ‘I have seen it.’

Stannis stared at the sky again. ‘No,’ he said.

***

The man with the face of stone wants to be a king very much. Ragnar almost admires it, but it does not seem to make him a good leader, only a stubborn one, who looks at the snow as if his gaze will burn it. No words of strength for his men, no kind words or smiles. No wonder some of them have deserted. Their Red God is not putting his fires in the right place, Ragnar thinks. Battles should not be fought in the snow. Though he knows that this winter is different – there is no Harpa’s summer blood marking its end, year upon year without fail. 

But the snow is heavy in everyone’s bones this morning. It makes even Ragnar feel a little tired. 

‘Ragnar.’ Torstein is there. ‘Something is happening.’

He follows his friend past the sparse crowd of Bar-ath-eon men to the edge of the camp, where more fighters cluster. Some trees stand crookedly around one that does not – it has been cut from somewhere else, and sheared of its branches so that it stands straight. Flat planks around it, and logs underneath.

Floki is already there with his arms folded. ‘They are making a sacrifice,’ he says, scratching the back of his neck lazily.

Ragnar is not surprised. But you do not _burn_ goats, or horses – and you would not kill an animal now, when food is so scarce. Perhaps the snow and the mutiny of the men is enough for a greater sacrifice, one that his own people themselves take upon themselves every nine years. He closes his eyes for a moment and thinks of Leif, lying there under Horik’s sword at Uppsala, proud to be meeting Odin early for the sake of them all. ‘Perhaps they should have done this a long time ago,’ he says. Perhaps then they would not have burnt his brother. Though he might have taken the flame and torched himself anyway, just to show how like Magni he was.

Everyone stands around looking at each other. It is not like his lands, where there is calm and sorrow and understanding for such a time as this. Here, there is a cold, blunt blade of danger in the air, in the way people do not speak, in the way that there is no singing, or drum-beating.

The princess and Rollo stand nearby. ‘What is happening?’ Ragnar hears Sansa say quietly to her husband. His brother just shakes his head, frowns.

The Red Woman sweeps by, except today her cloak is not red, but the deep colour of blackberries. Her hair looks darker. Ragnar thinks about finding her in the woods, lifting the back of her cloak up and surprising her, or sucking on her like blackberries, and puts that thought away. She stands on a flat stone by the pyre, and a man stands next to her with a torch. Of course she is leading this ritual. He wonders where Stannis, and his wife-who-always-itches, are hiding, letting this woman do their work for them.

There is a sound, and it is not the sound he expects. It is a girl. Ragnar turns, and sees the little princess with the half-face, being led by guards, and he sees the moment her face changes, as she sees the tall, bare trunk in front of her. 

***

You knew before the little girl did what was happening, and took your axe out of your belt before she had said _no_. Sansa had started forward, and was speaking in her tongue, many words, strong and quick. But there was anger there, and panic.

The Red Seiðr’s words floated out like boats that could not be hit by waves. _Light_ and _fire_ and _dark_. The same words she had said as she stood next to you. You felt a little flash-flood of anger. _Not enough_ , she had said. So they would kill this girl instead? Your people were used to sacrifice, but they met it willingly - not like this princess, who it was plain had not known about this.

Your wife looked around, past you, past Ragnar. ‘Where is Stannis? Where is the king?’ She said it again, more loudly.

‘He has gone to look for better paths in the snow. He went with the Fat Earl and some of the fishmen early this morning,’ said Torstein.

‘Or perhaps the king knows,’ said Ragnar quietly.

Floki was drawing his axe. ‘They do not have the boldness to stay and watch the sacrifice to their false god?’ He spat. 

The little princess girl struggled as she was taken up to the pyre, and tied with ropes. She was shouting _father_. Sansa was shouting, many words.

‘What are you doing? said Ragnar to the Red Seiðr, in a calm, smiling voice. ‘Take this girl down. She does not want to die for you.’

The seiðr only smiled back at him, and said _king_ , and some words you did not quite understand. 

Sansa ran towards the pyre and the Red Woman looked at some of the Bar-ath-eon men and they moved towards her. At once you were there, as close as you could be, your axe high, and there was the long shine-sound of swords being drawn all around you.

***

She was going to kill Shireen. _Shireen_. Not just burn her with a torch, as she did to Rollo, but burn her alive. 

The winter had turned from something great, broad and raging, to this finely-honed point, with many weapons held high, catching the dull morning light, and everyone frozen. The blade of a man’s sword was angled towards her neck.

‘Do not point that at my wife,’ said Rollo, in his own tongue. Three men with swords were surrounding him. The Baratheon men were starved, tired, but there were still far more of them. They would surely be overpowered.

The man who stood next to Sansa looked almost frightened by his own sword, but nervous enough to be dangerous. ‘What are you doing, that you would let this woman command you?’ she said to him, her jaw tight. 

‘It is King Stannis who commands me,’ he said, but he shifted from one foot to the other and his eyes flickered outwards. He was scared. Doubtful.

‘King Stannis is not here,’ Sansa said.

Shireen was still shouting, her voice cracking like dry winter twigs. Calling for her father, over and over. 

‘It is the only way, my lady,’ said Lady Melisandre to Sansa from her position by the pyre. She had never looked so calm as now, and spoke almost as if she was telling a child a gentle story. ‘We need a stronger light to guide us through this great darkness which befalls us. It is the king’s blood that runs through her veins. It will show us the right path.’ She nodded to the man with the flame, and he lowered it.

‘ _No_. We have to stop this,’ Sansa called to Rollo, who glanced over at Ragnar. ‘Please, King Ragnar. I knew we are few, but _please_.’ 

‘In our tongue,’ said the man with the sword at her throat, his eyes flashing with panic. ‘Speak in our tongue.’

Ragnar gazed at her, blue ice travelling in his eyes. A moment that can have only been a breath, but that seemed like a winter in itself, howling bleak and barren. And then he nodded, and it was enough to make everyone move at once. 

Sansa ducked and twisted away from the man who guarded her, and heard the sword whistle past her. She stumbled and ran a few steps, enough to get away, enough for Torstein to be fighting him instead. And then there was a pain in her ribs, a blow, and she thought _a sword_ but it was an elbow, before she righted herself and tried to fight the man. The Hound was there, fighting next to her, fighting his man and the one on her. Rollo was behind her, shouting for her as he turned with his axe, his face already bloody, shouting for her to run to safety, to an area past them where she might hide.

Instead Sansa ran towards the pyre.

The flames had taken. They lapped at the lowest logs, little red grins. Shireen screamed, and her words had begun to muddy together in her terror. It was too late. It would be too late. 

There was a movement, a shadow, swift and dark, and Floki had leapt up onto the planks, and was untying her, and Ragnar was running over, grabbing Shireen by the waist, lifting her up and away. He tumbled over with her into the snow, rolled her until the flames at the bottom of her skirts had disappeared. 

Sansa ran over to them, pulled Shireen by the hand, and ran with her into the trees. Shireen was sobbing, calling out a name that Sansa had not heard before amongst many other words, shaking. ‘It’s alright,’ Sansa whispered, over and over, stroking her hair, trying to ignore the pain in her own ribs. ‘It’s alright.’

‘He can’t have, he can’t have.’ Shireen said in a whimper, holding her feet. ‘If Ser Davos –’ her voice bubbled. ‘My feet.’ The leather of her boots was wrinkled and torn by the fire.

Sansa tried to pack snow over Shireen’s boots, looking back out from the edge of the woodland, desperate to see if Rollo was all right. He was attacking two men, wheeling around, moving with efficiency. Taller still and a little further away was the Hound, who had fought her own man off her. They both looked as if they had not fought for a while, and did so with grim relish.

Amongst the grey blur of men, Floki was there again, a starker flash of darkness alongside him. He had _her_. Melisandre. He was pulling her by her hair, and she was telling the men to stop him, and one by one they did stop, but not as she ordered. They stopped fighting, and watched. 

Floki was shouting something, and Melisandre began to raise her voice, louder than Sansa had ever heard before. He was taking her to the pyre. Gods. She felt a thin, dark tug in her throat, a horror, and something else more keen, almost wanting.

The flames were higher now. Floki dragged her onto it as if the fire was not even there, or as if his own realm was Muspelheim, while Melisandre’s body bent as if it would split in two if it could. Ragnar called to Floki to get down, his voice hoarse. With quick movements, Floki lashed her to the tall trunk, and jumped off, wriggling out of his outer clothes, which were smoking.

Melisandre was tied there, and the flames began to dance around her as she tried to pull away from her bindings, her voice rising again. ‘The Lord of Light will punish you all,’ she shouted. ‘My Lord R’hllor will punish you. My Lord R’hllor.’ The second time her god’s name sounded more like a plea.

‘Do not look,’ Sansa whispered, trying to cover Shireen’s eyes. 

Shireen twisted away. ‘No,’ she said, still shaking uncontrollably, her nose streaming. ‘I want to look.’

Floki stood beside the pyre. ‘Show me that you are Gullvieg,’ he shouted. ‘Show me you can be reborn. Like your god.’

The flames rose. There was a stretching cry that seemed at first like wood, but Sansa realised was her, the Red Woman, enveloped in the fire she worshipped, a low, wailing cry that grew and became smoke, became agony, became terror. Sansa grabbed Shireen and covered her face with her hands, and shut her own eyes tightly.

The cry died, crackling and disappearing in the sound of the fire. When Sansa opened her eyes, Floki was on the rock that Lady Melisandre had stood upon, his long limbs like arched trees against a fire that was now a roaring giant. His dark face-markings made him look as if he had sax-blades hung over each ear. As if he had been blackened by the fire. He looked around, over the heads of everyone, up at the cliffs. And his curling arms stopped. Froze.

‘You wanted a light in the darkness,’ he said to the Baratheon men, who stood dumbfounded, unsure of what to do next. ‘It is there. _Our_ gods have answered you, not yours.’

Slowly, he held his axe up, pointed with it, and did something that Sansa had not heard in a while. He gave one of his tiny, tight-lipped giggles.

Sansa stood and helped Shireen up. She was freezing cold, clammy, and in utter shock. Carefully, she walked out from the treeline, Shireen hopping next to her, to follow everyone’s gaze. The Baratheon men were shifting about, uncertain. 

Up on the high ridge beyond the camp, there were shapes. People. A man – no, two men, and a third in the middle, with longer hair. A woman. And then more figures appeared alongside them, and behind them. Many more. There were shields, and swords, and axes.

‘It is my wife,’ said Ragnar, and his voice was full of a wonder that Sansa had not heard since they had landed on Westeros. ‘It is my son.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God Jul*/Gleðileg Jól**, everyone! Hope you like it! 
> 
> **  
> **  
> Norse Mythology School:  
>  _Logi_ and _Loki_ are sometimes mixed up; it seems mostly to be that Logi is the god of fire (or the personification of fire itself).
> 
> When Floki looks at Shireen’s face, he says ‘light and dark’ – something Melisandre says all the time, but Floki is thinking of the goddess _Hel_ , whose face is part-living and part-dead.
> 
>  _Harpa_ is the Norse month of April 14th-May 13th, the first month after the winter season. A sacrificial feast, or the _summer-blood_ , is held early in the period.
> 
>  _Magni_ is the son of Thor, and god of strength.
> 
>  _Gullveig_ , the name Floki says to Melisandre as she burns, is a witch-seer in the Poetic Edda with a lust for gold, and who is thrice-burned, and thrice reborn. 
> 
> _Muspelheim_ is the realm of fire. 
> 
> *Swedish, but you know  
> ** Icelandic, but hey


	14. Ragnar Reunited

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big thanks to ZoeSong for her editing chops. THANK GOODNESS FOR HER AND HER RAGNAR-LIKE EAGLE EYES.

‘Father.’

Ragnar’s son is in his arms, or he is in his son’s arms, before he knows it. Bjørn is man and boy, bear and cub at once.

‘I am happy to see you, Father.’ He does not look like he has taken on Ragnar’s kingship since they have been apart. There is only scrubbed honesty in his eyes, not disappointment. ‘I always knew you were not dead,’ Bjørn says, before moving back from him a little, an eager, searching look. ‘Did you know it? That we were alive?’

Ragnar’s eyes flit to the ground. ‘Yes,’ he says, as light as a fledgling feather from a nest. He sees Rollo give a slow smile, raising his eyebrows to the sky. 

And his friend is there, not at the bottom of the sea but right in front of him, as if they had never been apart, and Ragnar’s heart is a flooded field. ‘It is good to see you, friend,’ says Athelstan, in his quiet, strong voice that smiles even if his face does not.

Ragnar pulls him into his chest. His friend is alive. They are all alive. ‘You have been lost in the fog all this time?’ he says into his ear. 

Athelstan shakes his head, and then Lagertha is behind them, like a harvest sunrise. ‘Ragnar,’ she says, and he loves the way that her tongue rolls around his name the way that it used to roll around other parts of him. 

He cannot help the boy-husband smile that comes. ’What took you so long?’ he says. It is the only way he knows how to speak to this woman who was once his companion in all things. It is the only way to offer his heart, though he knows that she will never take it again.

There is the smallest smile on her face, the smallest light in her eyes. ‘We have been busy,’ she says, and Ragnar looks past her shoulder to see Sansa standing in front of a boy.

‘Rickon?’ she says, her voice nothing more than a disappearing mist.

***

You stood a little apart. Sansa had already said the name that meant that this boy with the hair the colour of a wet fox was her brother, the smallest one. He had a careful, awake look that made you think he would be a good tracker. 

For so long Sansa had been alone, a bright pebble on a sand-beach, and it had been your family she had become entwined with. You thought, Odin willing, that her younger sister would be the first of her family you would see, and now there was this boy. Kin. 

The boy did not speak. Sansa left gaps after her words but he did not fill them. And then she said your name, too, and you stepped forward, heart beating as much as it would before a battle-horn. You crouched down in the mud, spoke to him, careful not to touch. ‘Hello. I am happy to meet you.’ The words felt dragged through the mud but they were there, in the boy’s tongue. 

And then you stood, very quickly. There was a wolf, huge, the stench of him overpowering. Glower-eyes. Fenrir.

A tiny, panicked whimper and Ylva was scratching at your ankles. You picked her up swiftly and the wolf bounded closer, put his nose up. A rumble in his throat. Every hair on your skin had risen. Ylva tried to climb up onto your neck, your head. 

Rickon clicked his fingers and the great black wolf looked round, did a yawn-yowl. The boy made a sign, like antlers, or like a bird, and the wolf stepped backwards, sat. You lowered Ylva, who had scratched as deep as a dagger-blade into your neck, and she ran away very quickly.

Bjørn was there and you crushed him in your arms, gave him a heavy oar-slap on the back. ‘It is good to see you again, Bjørn. I always knew it would be so.’ 

‘Uncle,’ he said, in his serious, light way, and it was if you had only seen him yesterday. 

You turned him round by the shoulders. ‘Not a scratch on you, I see.’

‘Not so far,’ he said, and looked at Rickon, putting a hand behind the big wolf’s ears, unafraid, and then ruffling the boy’s hair in the same way, making a wolf-sounds. 

Something in the boy’s face cleared, a storm-cloud becoming just a white cloud. Sansa was watching, looking happy and almost-hurt at once, before she stood up and hugged Bjørn, her almost-brother, her friend, her family. ‘I missed you,’ she said, into his shoulder.

‘I missed you, too,’ he said, and you marvelled at them both, not brother and sister, not wanting sex, only friendship.

Torstein came and stood by your side. ‘The gods smile on us.’

‘They do, Torstein.’

Torstein moved his head. ‘But not on him.’

You looked round to see Stannis, arrived back from wherever the Hel he had gone, looking around at all these new people as he stalked forward – Lagertha seemed to have brought many new warriors with her as well as almost all your own people from the boats you had thought lost – before his eyes fell upon the tall stake. The fire had plumed and now was low, and there was nothing left of the Red Seiðr.

***

‘What has happened here, Lady Stark? Who are these people?’ Stannis only glanced at the fallen men – a few of his, and two of Ragnar’s fighters – were wounded or dead, and deep red peppered the snow. Instead he looked beyond them to the huge train of travellers who had come down from the cliff.

‘They are King Ragnar’s people, your Grace.’ And not just his, but many others, who were rough-dressed, women and children amongst those who seemed more like fighters. They had come the long way round, Lagertha had said to her, with the sort of smile that meant she had seen much. Everyone looked thinner, much thinner than Sansa and the others did. They had brought Rickon. Rickon. But there was no time for that now. Not yet.

Ragnar was there, his sword out, circling Stannis and looking more like an eagle than a man. The atmosphere had turned cold, deadly after the joy and disbelief of the reunion. 

‘You have killed some of my men,’ Stannis said to him. ‘I’ll have you executed.’

Ragnar gave a light shrug. ‘Some of your men.’ He took a breath as if he had just remembered something. ‘And one woman.’ He held up a finger, and waved it faintly towards the blackened stake post before curling it up.

In an instant, Stannis’ face changed. For the first time, Sansa saw real shock pass over his expression, and knew that he felt it down to his bones. He looked around, and she knew whom he searched for. 

‘Where is the Lady Melisandre?’ he said.

‘She is smoke,’ said Ragnar, and the skin at the corner of his eye feathered. ‘Like her god.’

‘ _No_.’ Queen Selyse had appeared, her pale, pinched face owl-like amongst their men, clutching her elbows. Her word fluttered amongst them. ‘No.’

Stannis’ shaken expression hardened to something more grim. ‘You will all die,’ he said. ‘All of you. Upon my word.’

‘Before you kill us all, do you not want to know why?’ Ragnar said.

‘You do not know what you have done.’ Stannis did not raise his voice. ‘You killed a woman who was very important to me. Important to every one of us.’

Sansa felt a hot anger rise sharply in her. ‘He _saved_ a woman who was important to you. Your daughter.’

Stannis’ eyes sparked briefly before becoming plain and sheer again. Sansa tried to read the guilt in them, and could not find it. He looked round for his daughter, who was sitting on a log with her feet raised in front of her, and Floki kneeling by her, an arm underneath her calves to help hold them up. He stood as Stannis approached, and spat violently onto the ground. 

‘Shireen,’ Stannis said, kneeling down to her. ‘I –’

Shireen gave him a plaintive, searching look that Stannis could not seem to hold – a man who claimed kingship, shamed by his daughter. 

‘Your Grace,’ Sansa said. ‘Tell us that you did not sanction this.’

Stannis was still crouched down. ‘I did not –’ he said, very quietly, the sentence not finished. ‘I did not think that –’

Shireen had her head tilted downwards, her hair hanging down in front of her face a little, looking back up him with eyes that were watchful, hurt. ‘You knew.’

‘She spoke of it. She – I.’ Stannis swallowed. ‘Shireen, forgive me.’

‘Your girl,’ said Ragnar. ‘I would kill many to get my girl back on this earth.’

‘You follow a bad god,’ said Rollo.

Stannis stood and looked round at them all, before his eyes settled on Sansa. ‘What do you propose to do? Fight until all our people are dead? Burn me as you burnt the Lady Melisandre?’

She caught Ragnar’s eye and gazed back at Stannis. ‘No. We will talk.’ And you will listen, she thought.

***

I sit close to Athelstan at the fire, with new faces and old about me.

Stannis. A man with a dark face, with shadows and secrets that perhaps even he does not fully know. He wears pain on it like a wound, though he has none I can see. I had hoped him to be a stronger man than this one. I saw his wife, just for a moment, clutching onto him and staring at their daughter, and there was a darkness and rot in her. 

His own daughter, Ragnar says. This little noble girl who looks the age Gyda was when she died. If he had known that this woman wanted to kill her, he should have burnt her himself. I cannot look the man in the eye without feeling hate that he might do this, that he would choose to destroy the gift that the gods had given him.

I do not think the raven came to Stannis with its words from Jon Snow. He is as surprised as Sansa is about Rickon being with us, and looks hard and long at him. Asks his name, and Rickon only stares back, nods once. Does not know me, or my name.

Sansa talks much, but I see how many words Ragnar knows now, too. He always ate new words up as quickly as nuts or seeds. Athelstan helps me, whispering quietly as the words are passed back and forth like bitter ale. ‘They ask him again whether he knew about his daughter, but he does not seem to answer fully. Sansa talks of Win-ter-fell, and the battle. How we have more fighters now, and will be strong again.’

Stannis speaks a word as if it burns his mouth. 

‘The wild people,’ says Athelstan, quietly. ‘I do not think that he cares for them.’

I sit a little taller. ‘I want to speak,’ I say, and everyone looks at me. ‘There is a lot to tell you –’ I look around at everyone. ‘To tell all of you, but I must first say this.’ I look at Sansa again, speak in my tongue. ‘It is Jon Snow who sent me, from the ice-wall on the sea.’

Her eyes widen and swallow the fire. ‘You saw Jon?’ she says. ‘He was – there?’

‘Yes,’ I say to her. ‘He commands all the men at the ice-wall now.’ She gazes at me, her mouth a little open, before she blinks and tells Stannis – and also the large man, who seems to be an ally of hers, who is perhaps an earl – my words. Stannis only nods.

Athelstan helps me tell them her half-brother’s message. Of bringing Rickon here to Stannis, so that a Stark is in the north of their lands. Of the great battle beyond the wall and the wild people we have brought with us who would have all been killed. How Jon Snow wishes for fighters to return.

‘I have travelled with these people from the north of the great ice-wall,’ I say. ‘They are not so different from my own people. From King Ragnar’s. We have journeyed together and I know that they are strong. I have talked of us fighting together, but I know it needs others to help talk them into battle.’ I look at Sansa again. ‘I am sure that with the right leaders and a promise to help them with their own fight, those that are able will help you.’

Sansa’s eyes are deep and clear. ‘Thank you, Earl Ingstad,’ she says, and an understanding passes between us, something only women know. A respect for our shared strength, which must be seen to be greater because we are women. 

Stannis speaks, looks at us all, and leaves. 

‘He said that he has to think,’ Athelstan tells me. ‘That he cannot so easily forgive what has happened here.’ 

There is a silence filled only with the snapping of the fire amongst us. 

‘How can we trust a man who would do that to his daughter?’ Floki says. ‘He should be punished. He should eat the flames he wanted his little girl to taste.’

Sansa stares into the fire.

‘He speaks as if he rules us all,’ says Torstein. ‘We have brought many more fighters here now.’

There is a tall man with a face that Hel herself seems to have clawed at, his cheek and jaw bearing old burns, who must be a great warrior. He speaks, and Sansa tells us his words. ‘He says that we need his men. That we should use him to get to get us Win-ter-fell, and after that we can do what we like.’

‘The Big Dog is right,’ says Ragnar. ‘We do not kill him. We fight together at Win-ter-fell, and then we can decide.’ He nods at this tall man, who leaves, ducking his head.

And so we are together. Ragnar, always and never again my husband, and I thank Odin that we are in each other’s company again, though it was not always so. The dull ache of hope I have held since the fog lifted, daring for it not to be loss, has ebbed away. More than anything, I had hoped for my son to see his father again, and now here they are are, Bjørn sitting next to Ragnar, their stances just the same, leaning forward with their elbows on their knees. I say a silent prayer to Freyr and Frigg for making it so.

Here is Rollo, who has new wounds to mark his time here. His arm is red-burnt, and there are bruises on his forehead. Floki, who seems to have done a brave thing in saving the young princess, and looks at the flecks of flame left on his skin, and paints new black on his face. All the earls. And Sansa, who now that she stands on her own land, seems taller and stronger, if tired. She has her own small, grey wolf and it makes me remember Jon Snow’s great wolf. I am not sure that this one will grow so big.

Sansa says some quiet words to Rickon, and _Jon_ amongst them - I think she asks that her younger brother about him. Rickon looks back, nods and looks at his hands. I see how Sansa does not understand his silence and hope that she can grow used to it, as we have done. We speak to him in our own tongue, Bjørn more than anyone, and I am sure that he begins to understand a little. ‘And Jon - commands?’ she says, as if she still does not quite believe it.

‘He does,’ I say, remembering his tired face, frost-pale against the black fur. ‘He seems a true leader.’

‘Yes,’ says Bjørn. ‘Although not everyone thinks so.’ He tells them of Cot-ter-pyke and his men attacking Jon, and how Rickon and Dog-With-Beard sounded the alarm. Sansa looks at her small brother again, with amazement.

‘He needs friends among him,’ I say. ‘And warriors. To help him fight.’

‘To help him fight who?’ says Rollo, leaning forward. ‘Who are these warriors in the north?’

‘Not who,’ I say. ‘What.’

Ragnar brings his hands away from his mouth, and I am glad to see the blaze so bright in his eyes. ‘What do you mean?’

‘It may be a long night,’ I say, and together, Athelstan and Bjørn and I tell them everything that has happened and all that we have seen, and it is as if we are storytellers, unfolding new stories greater than any ever told, unfolding them into the night.

***

When Sansa had seen the sword slice into her father’s neck, her world had blurred. His head, there, and then gone. She had ended up thinking of that moment as the severing between herself and her whole family. 

And now Rickon was here. Her little brother had remained the same curly-haired boy with the slight knock-knee and stout fists, and yet here was a taller, leaner version far older than she would ever have expected him to look. And he would not talk to her. He only looked at her with eyes that were pine-needle green and just as sharp, no matter how many questions she asked. His softness had gone. 

‘He has not talked for some time, mi’lady,’ said the woman who had not left his side. ‘Don’t take it to heart. If anything, I’m the one who should be offended.’

Sansa wrapped her cloak further around her shoulders. It was colder here than she ever remembered. ‘I am sorry. I am forgetting myself. We have not been introduced.’

‘I know well enough who you are. You have his look.’ The woman gave her a quick, assessing glance. ‘And a little of Bran’s.’

Sansa’s breath caught as if sheep’s wool on wire. ‘Bran?’ She gazed at Rickon, but his eyes quickly moved to the floor. ‘He is – he is alive?’

‘Ay, mi’lady, at least last time we looked. It’s hard to say.’ Her voice was soft-brushed, Northern. Hair tangled as blackthorn.

He was alive, too then. As her wolf-dreams had told her. ‘Who are you?’

‘Osha. I escaped with them from Winterfell, a long time ago it seems now.’

Sansa had known every kitchenmaid’s name, made rhymes - not always complimentary ones - about the other servants. ’I’m sorry, I don’t remember your face.’

‘You wouldn’t. I didn’t work there when you were still there. I am - ’ she gave a small, rough shake of her head. ‘I was born north of the Wall.’

A wildling woman. Had this been years ago at Winterfell, Sansa would have dashed off, a mess of fear and repugnance. But everything was so different now. There were wildlings all around them. Friends, not foe. She looked at the woman again, the wide-set eyes and dark jaw as Osha told her of how she led them to safety, away from Theon’s capture of the castle, with Hodor carrying Bran. Of their trek across the north, the brother and sister they had met, and Bran’s determination to go past the Wall.

‘Then I must thank you. For saving them.’

‘I didn’t do it for you, mi’lady.’ Osha’s words were quiet and spare, but she didn’t seem to intend any disrespect. Instead, she continued to eye Rickon, who was staring into the fire. 

Bjørn came and sat next to him, a loud exhalation of air as if the sun had burst. He nudged him heftily and Rickon smiled, a slow, only half-reluctant one. ‘So, we will have a great battle soon,’ he said to Sansa. 

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘And I am glad that we are all together for it. Can the wildlings fight?’

‘I have not seen them in battle, but they look to be a fighting people.’

Sansa asked the same question of Osha in the Common Tongue.

‘Ay, we can fight,’ she said. ‘With more heart than most. We don’t have all your fancy armour and weapons, but we have the lust for it in our bones.’ She looked a little moodily into the fire. ‘We were born and bred to do it, against you lot.’ Osha looked up, with keen and humourous eyes. ‘Begging your pardon, m’lady. Never would have thought I’d see wildlings and southrons together.’

Nor did Sansa. But it did not seem the most unlikely thing anymore - nothing did. There was so much to take in. Jon, alive and leading all those men of the Night’s Watch. The white killers and the undead who lived north of the Wall, who did not seem like Old Nan’s silly stories any longer. Her mind felt hard and white, a frost-field. More than all of that, she could not imagine Bran, without the use of legs, north of the Wall with only Hodor and two people she had never met. But it gave her hope, and strength, to feel the threads of her family tautening. ‘I’m from the North,’ she said.

‘Not from where I’m standing, you’re not.’ A small, dark grin. 

She certainly was a wildling woman – far bolder than any servant she remembered. If she had spoken to Sansa’s father in that manner, he would have had her punished. But this was not the world that he knew, not any longer. ‘Everything has changed,’ said Sansa. She looked at Bjørn again. ‘I will be glad to fight alongside you, Bjørn.’

His face broadened, not quite a smile, but a broad readiness. ‘And I with you.’ He stood. ‘We will see what this king says in the morning. And perhaps we will cut his head off if what he says does not please us.’ He did smile, then, before saying goodnight.

‘He’s a fine one,’ said Osha, who was now rubbing two small sticks together with fierce concentration. ‘Pretty and strong. There aren’t many wildlings as close-carved as that boy.’

‘Yes.’ Sansa blinked. ‘He is – he’s like a brother to me.’

Osha went back to whittling her sticks, her hair falling down in front of her face. ‘The things I’d like to do to him wouldn’t be very sisterly.’ She grinned, her mouth the shape of a rabbit-wire, and Sansa could only let her mouth fall open.

Later, Sansa joined Lagertha and others around another fire, and the two of them were able to speak more comfortably. Lagertha seemed to treat Sansa as an equal now, and it made Sansa sit a little taller to know it. And for her own part, Lagertha seemed to have become more commanding – it was clear that she had led and that everyone, including Earl Edman and Earl Olesen, had followed.

‘I can only thank you again for bringing Rickon here.’ Her brother had stood when Shaggydog – who, if he wasn’t by Rickon’s side was nosing around after Ylva, who was terrified of him – loped off into the trees. Osha had slipped away after him. A wolf and two shadows.

Lagertha smiled. ‘I am pleased to have been able to help.’

Sansa watched the smoke writhe into strange, twisting bodies, and shivered. ‘I am not sure that you have seen the best of my land.’

‘I have certainly seen the coldest realms.’ Lagertha tucked her hand into Sansa’s arm, in a way that was both motherly and sisterly. ‘Who is that warrior, Sansa?’ She nodded to the Hound, who sat out of earshot of their quiet voices, staring into the fire as if it was telling him his future. 

‘That is Sandor Clegane,’ she said. ‘I knew him at King’s Landing. He is one of the finest warriors in Westeros. Sandor,’ she said, more loudly, and it was the first time she had ever addressed him by name. It felt odd on her tongue. He looked up in some surprise. ‘This is Lagertha, Earl Ingstad,’ she said. ‘She is the former wife of King Ragnar and now leads her own warriors.’

The Hound – _Sandor_ – eyed Lagertha over the fire, the flames licking shadows deeper into his scars. ‘Why do all you fucking women have to fight?’

It was difficult to know whether he was thinking of Lady Brienne, or Arya, or herself. ‘I think it would be better if _more_ of us fought,’ Sansa said, and shot him a haughty look.

He chewed on his lip and gave a dark, rueful half-grin, shaking his head. ‘Ay, well, you would.’

‘What does he say?’ asked Lagertha.

‘He admires women who fight.’ Sansa said, in their tongue, and raised her eyebrows at him. ‘Very much.’

***

By the time you lay down together, it was very late. Stars as hard as iron nail-points, and a black sky around them. 

You moved her hair away from her neck and put your nose and mouth there instead, tasted the cool of her. Tried to warm her up, your hands bringing her firmly into your waist. She was shivering, and you realised that it was not just from the cold. ‘Tell me,’ you said, quietly.

She shook her head, under your chin. ‘Nothing. Everything. It’s just a lot to – understand.’

‘Are you happy about your brother?’ 

‘Yes. Of course. I cannot quite believe that he is here.’ She grew quiet and you knew she was not quite happy. The boy slept in a different tent with the wild woman who was his guardian. But the little princess was asleep near you both, with Ylva curled up by her legs. Her feet were burnt and it would be hard for her to walk for a while. She had not wanted to be near her father.

‘He has seen much, I think. It is hard for him, too, to be with all these new people,’ you say, and squeeze her a little tighter. ‘He will remember his sister.’

‘I know.’

‘And your other brother, Jon?’ Sansa had never spoken much of him in Kattegat. 

‘Yes. He sounds very brave. I should have known that he would be.’

He did not seem like he wanted to rule Win-ter-fell, this half-brother. Perhaps his command in the North was more important, somehow. But almost as soon as you had seen her younger brother, a little pebble had hit your heart. You had to ask. ‘Rickon,’ you said, folding your fingers into her hair. ‘He will rule Win-ter-fell?’

Your wife stilled in your arms. ‘I don’t know. He is the Stark heir, as long as Bran is lost. But he is so young.’ She turned her head, eyes carefully finding yours. ‘I don’t know, Rollo.’ Her palm on your face, very cold. 

You leant into it, turned and kissed it. 

You did not sleep.

***

‘Tell me again.’ Ragnar cannot sleep, and nor can they. He looks up as his brother sits down next to him. Perhaps he has left his wife asleep.

Athelstan puts on his storytelling voice. ‘It is taller than anything you can think of, Ragnar. As tall as Kattegat’s mountains, but made by man.’ 

Ragnar shifts on his hip as he lies by the fire. He tries to see it in the flames, but he cannot understand an ice-wall that touches the clouds. ‘And it is as Sansa said? It is guarded by men?’

‘The Night’s Watch, yes.’

Ragnar sits up, drifts his fingers over the flames. Little bite-burns. ‘And the dead live?’ He looks at Lagertha, whose hair is made Sif-gold by the light.

She nods. ‘It is what was said. We did not see it. But I believe Jon Snow. He is not a man to lie.’

Bjørn has come to join them. Another who cannot sleep, for why sleep when family is twisted back together again, like the metal on a torc? ’There are giants, Father,’ he says. ‘We saw one.’

Rollo has been watching the fire, his hands folded between his knees, but at this, even he blinks. ‘How tall?’

‘As tall as that tree,’ Bjørn says, giving a little, calm nod above his uncle’s head. 

Rollo stares at the tree for a long time, before giving a small shake of his head.

Floki does not giggle. He says something quietly to himself, and curls and uncurls his fingers, staring at them.

Lagertha is still gazing at Ragnar. ‘This is a wild realm, Ragnar, and it has magic in it. The gods are closer to us here. I can feel it.’

Ragnar thinks for a moment of seeing Odin, of coming upon him in an ice-forest. Drinking ale with him. Or walking with Frosti, his feet lifting like trees wrenched from the earth.

It is as he thought. He was fated to find this place. To come closer to the gods than any in his homeland has ever done. He lies back again, not thinking of the hard dense snow at his back but of the songs they would sing about him. 

‘I almost forgot,’ says Lagertha, and is giving Athelstan little joke-looks. ‘We have something for you.’

‘As if you all being alive is not a gift enough?’ Ragnar says. 

‘Not quite,’ she says, and watches Athelstan disappear into the shadows.

‘You thought we were dead,’ she says, with a smile that is both cool and warm.

Ragnar cannot look at her. His lip twitches upwards. ‘I did not.’

‘We always knew you were alive,’ she says, as there is a scuffling sound. Someone stuttering – perhaps they have brought him a prisoner of some kind. ‘Otherwise we would not have brought you this.’ She nods.

Ragnar looks up to see what man they bring him. More odd sounds, and Athelstan is there, and another man, and he is tugging hard on a rope. It seems to be much effort. At the end of the rope is a beast – long, shaggy pale fur, and coming from its forehead, a long, bone, as if a sea-cone has grown there. He has never seen anything like it. Athelstan is grinning at him.

It is a magic goat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **  
> **  
> Norse Mythology School:  
>  _Sif_ is the Norse goddess of the earth, who is married to Thor and famed for her long golden hair.
> 
>  _Frigg_ is the wife of Odin and is the goddess of fertility and wisdom.
> 
>  _Freyr_ is the god of fertility and prosperity.
> 
>  **GoT Notes** :
> 
> It was a pretty long time ago, but you might remember Lagertha and Athelstan seeing something as they left Skagos. While some say that Skagos has unicorns, in fact they are a weird type of big, one-horned goat. Tee hee.
> 
> Ta as always to those who comment! It is so very appreciated and fuels me onwards.


	15. Ragnar Prepares Part One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the hiatus. This shit is HARD, in truth. But thank gods for ZoeSong and the awesome Son of ZoeSong for basically providing me with battle-plans! More of which to come. The next chapter will follow in unprecedentedly swift fashion!

Did you miss me, Lagertha?’ Ragnar walks alongside me. Athelstan has left us, knowing that it is good to let us talk, knowing without me having to tell him.

‘I was too busy fighting flesh-eaters and having sea-battles.’ I look over at him and smile. ‘While you were lying around on the priests’ island or being fattened at the great house of your earl friend.’

He does his trickster-child grin at the snow, shakes his head. ‘We have been busy enough. There has been a lot of talking. Making allies.’

‘But not fighting.’

‘Not yet.’ He rolls his shoulders back and gives a sigh that is like a torn piece of cloth. ‘I am ready for a bit of battle.’ 

I see it, the hunger in it from him, and whilst I and all our people are so tired, having him amongst them has added a little more fire to bellies. Ahead of us and behind us, many warriors march. The men of the Big Earl, who live by the sea, are at the back, and in front of them are the wild people of the north, mingling a little with our own people. It is easy to see who are the Bara-the-on men - their heads hang a little lower, their trudge more heavy.

‘This man Stannis,’ I say. He had come to Ragnar and said that they would fight together, as had been planned. As if it was still his war and he was king of us all. Ragnar had only nodded, and I could see the hate in his eyes for this man. ‘He knows how to fight?’

Ragnar sighs a little. ‘He knows how to command many men. It is true that we have never fought with such large numbers. But it is us who know how to cross a frozen river.’ He nods ahead of him. ‘Time to split up.’

The river called the White Knife has an ice-glitter in the valley below us. We had sat awake under the high moon talking of how to cross it when surely the enemy would be waiting for us, if only in small numbers. The carts and horses had to cross the bridge that Sansa and the Big Earl had marked on the drawings they had. But Ragnar had made a plan – for some of us to go further south and north, find a place where the ice was thick enough, and get to the other side with enough arrows to slay any lying in wait. I had said that I would take the north.

‘We will need to talk to everyone,’ I say. ‘Before we fight at Winterfell. Many people are lifting weapons, and not for themselves.’ 

‘Yes.’ He tugs on the rope he holds between his fingers, and the great goat we brought all the way from Skagos walks a little quicker next to him, bleating and baring his teeth a little like Tanngrisnir. Perhaps Thor is riding alongside us in his chariot. 

‘You know you cannot fight with that rope in your fist,’ I say. 

Ragnar looks down at it, and back up. ‘Who says I cannot?’ There is a sunstone-gleam in his eye.

***

The sky was full of its own snowdrifts, banking or ridged or swept as if by a hand. Sansa trudged alongside Athelstan, trying to remember what a bath felt like. The steam baths of Kattegat, or long ago, water laced with marjoram oil, rose petals floating in them like little skiffs. Her ankle twisted a little as she stepped on a rock hidden by the thick snow and almost stumbled, before Athelstan caught her elbow. She smiled her thanks.

‘It is good to see you with your own land under your feet,’ he said.

She grinned at him. ‘When I can stand straight on it.’ It was strange to her how comfortable it was between them. She had _lain_ with him – more than several times, and he had been the first to show her what her body could do with another’s – the dark burst of pleasure, like squeezing a late summer berry. 

‘And you, Athelstan? What is it like to be here?’ she said.

‘It is a wonder to me that I am somewhere that no Englishman has ever been. I am happy to be in this new place.’ Like Ragnar, she thought, except without the need to lead. Only to observe, and learn. He glanced at her, his green eyes a frost-sparkle, though his skin looked sheer, raw. ‘Though I would prefer one of your long summers.’

Sansa tried to imagine what the next summer would bring – she, settled in Winterfell, with Rickon a young king in the north, or her perhaps still a warden of it. She tried to picture the hard snow under her feet melted and lush grass in its place, and small children tumbling around her. Children. Or perhaps none of this would happen – perhaps she would be slain in the shadow of her home and rot in the earth there, along with everyone. Or in drown in the black water under the ice of the river that was not so far away now.

‘You are afraid.’ Athelstan was still looking at her. He knew how to read her, as he might have his colourful, detailed books.

‘Of course I am. They killed my family. They will be happy to kill me, or use me however they wish.’ She thought of the Bolton’s symbol, of skin peeling from bone. ‘They will kill all of you, if we lose.’ Of Rollo, strung on a tilted cross.

‘Then we cannot lose.’ His voice was always so calm, even when talking of the heaviest things. ‘You have a lot of people who are willing to fight.’

‘To what end? We are different armies, fighting for different things.’ 

‘Then perhaps it is for you to show them that they are really fighting for the same thing.’

‘For me?’

‘You are at the heart of this. Not Stannis, or Lagertha, or Ragnar. It’s you that has brought all these people together.’

Sansa drew her furs tighter round her shoulders as she walked, looking at the vast swathe of travelling people in front of her, to either side, and far behind, in a long train of men, women, children, carts and horses. She suddenly felt as as if _they_ were the fur round her shoulders, her warmth and protection, and felt blessed and burdened at once.

‘Why will you fight, Athelstan?’ she said.

‘Because I am Ragnar’s friend. Because he wants to help you – in order to gain more for himself, I know, but he would not do it if he did not think it right. And I want to fight for _you_.’

She took his arm for a moment, wondered at this friendship and loyalty. Wondered, with not a little dread, how to inspire that in others.

***

You were almost at the river that stopped your ships further south when you had sailed from the White Habour. One more hill, some of the Manderly men had said. You hoped your brother and Lagertha had not cracked the ice and drowned. It was right, to get some fighters to the other side. There had been guards every night, and many of them. The same mistakes would not be made again. No more need to sacrifice more little girls, you thought, as Floki caught up with you, leading a horse with the princess called Shireen on it. He had not let her out of his sight since plucking her from the Red God’s flames.

‘Is this what the gods want, Rollo?’ he said now, his mood as dark as the markings on his face. The princess seemed to have a little line of black under each of her eyes. 

‘What?’ 

‘For us to fight this battle?’ 

‘The battle is just as much for us,’ you said. ‘If we win, we have Win-ter-fell.’

‘You mean the little silent brother does. Him and his Fenrir.’

It hurt to think of it. You had not spoken more of it to Sansa – it was not important now. Nearly five thousand fighters were heading to her home, and you could not stop them to stamp your feet and say that you did not want Rickon to rule. She had always said that she felt that her kin were alive. 

‘It is still ours,’ you said. Her family.’ _My family_. You tested out that thought.

‘And then what? This _king_.’ Floki waved his hand ahead of him, to where the Bara-the-on men lumbered as if walking through thick mud. ‘We help him, not ourselves.’

‘We help ourselves to the northern part of this land.’

‘Yes, it is dreadfully rich with harvest.’ His voice curled and tightened, rope-twine. ‘Look at the shining fields and plentiful food.’ He swept his arm in front of him.

You tried not to look at the whiteness of the hills. ‘Shut up, Floki.’

The little brown-haired princess said something. Her voice was like a tiny bone-flute. You looked at her, and she spoke it again, more slowly. ‘It is nice in summer,’ she said, and you wondered at how she can have known what you had both been saying, before she said more, bubbling words, and pointed to the ground, the sky. And she looked at you, and at Floki. ‘Thank you for coming.’

Floki’s face untwisted, and he had the same face he had when holding his little turnip of a daughter in front of him. He made a noise that was a breath and a chicken-cluck at once, touched her ankle for a moment, and did not say another word until you crested the hill. ‘And now for our first battle that is not with frightened priests,’ he said, and lifted his axe out of his belt.

The river was not so wide here. The ice looked thick, unbreakable, as if it had always been there, and a long line of grey-white trees were on the other side. And there was the bridge, wide enough for three carts at once, though it would be best to go slowly so as not to break it. It would be a long crossing. Plenty of time for Bolton warriors to kill some of you. You could not see your brother and his fighters - they were there or they were not.

There was beginning to be a little red in the sky as this great army made its way down the hill. You left Floki with the line of horses and moved quickly down to find Sansa and Athelstan. ‘I will go first,’ you said to her. 

Her eyes were bright and careful with fear. ‘Then I will, too.’

‘No, _raf refr_ ,’ you said. ‘You need to stay alive.’ 

***

The river-crossing had been easy. The wild people were even more used to ice than Ragnar’s own, and could read it as the seer can read a person’s fate. Ragnar liked them. A tall man with a black mouth had gone first, tapping with his great oak-stick, and they had followed in a bending line, a hundred lean men and women.

Now they wait in the trees like owls. Clouds of breath filling the spaces where leaves would be in summer, if there is even such a thing in this land. 

A bird-whistle. Torstein, over in another tree, jerks his head and Ragnar looks across to the eastern part of the river, to where the great army can be seen moving down the hill towards the bridge. Like a slurry of mud made by the gods. It is the first time he has seen them all at once from such a distance, and it almost snatches his breath from his belly. He knows that there will be just as many men at Wint-er-fell, but even so – it is a sight. Something to tell his little ones, some day.

Another whistle, from behind him. He shifts a little, up in his tree, and realises that it is not one of his own. That it is a call from someone standing on the ground, further back. Torstein is already nodding at him – no words were needed. Carefully, Ragnar rubs his knuckles, which have gone to sleep with the cold, his eyes moving between the movement at the river and down at the hard-frosted ground below him. Waiting for the twig-snap.

***

I watch the warriors cross the bridge, listening to my heart do its own cold foot-stamp. As they cross, they hold their shields up, and form long lines either side as they come onto the western bank. I am watching from a short cliff to the north-west with my arrowmen. We are close enough to hit an enemy, as long as they are on open ground. We did not know those trees would be there.

The wind scratches at my ears, trying to get under my skin. I only hope that Njörðr sends our arrows in the right direction.

The first carts come, carrying weapons and tents. Man-der-ly banners. There is a shout, and warriors to the side of it fall. Arrows. I look up, and round at the cliff-side. No shapes. They are in the trees, where we cannot see them. Another man falls, twists, lands on the ice, and another. I try to see amber hair amongst them, but I cannot. I yell to some of our arrowmen to stay and others to follow me.

By the time we get to the trees, there is a scattering of men, and blood speckling the ground. Torstein is plunging his sword into a man who already lies on the ground. There are perhaps four twelves dead, almost all the enemy. I stand over one of them, whose neck is half-severed. He does not look any different, this one commanded by a flayer of skin. 

Ragnar comes behind me, breathing heavily, eyes dancing. Looking more alive. ‘I do not think we needed you this time.’ He smiles, and there is blood on his teeth. It makes him look mad.

‘You will,’ I say. 

Stannis is here, flanked by men. 

‘How many dead?’ Ragnar says to him.

He looks around at the dead. ‘Not many.’ He holds up all his fingers, shows them twice.

Ragnar rubs the blood between his teeth. ‘Now we send men –’ he waves his hands to the west. ‘They go before us.’

Stannis says a word, and Sansa has come up, her sword in her hand. ‘Scouts,’ she says, in our tongue.

Ragnar and Stannis nod. They agree on this one. No one should die before we reach the battleground, and Sansa’s home.

***

When Sansa had lived at Winterfell, she had never had interest in war. Her father would gently try and show her some of the musty old books in the library, full of numbers and diagrams, but she only ever wanted to curl up with one of the books of songs, or the long stories that had inked flowers curling up around the words. Even a year ago, Sansa could not have imagined she would be where she was now, part of a battle-council, everyone’s faces lit up by the fire in the largest tent.

They were a day away from Winterfell, after two hard days’ travelling. There had been small attacks, but Ragnar’s scouts had always meant that everyone was prepared, and she herself had not seen a hint of fighting, only its remnants, Bolton men who lay, limbs smashed into the snow, as the long train of them passed. Ser Wylis had told her that the Boltons would have always known that their greatest chance of winning this fight would be from Winterfell itself and its surrounds. He had given her this news without being patronising he always treated her so kindly. She had to be careful to listen now, though, and not make an idiot of herself by saying the wrong thing. 

Stannis had his finger on one of his maps. She could see that Ragnar found them fascinating, crouched over them, his eyes travelling down each road, each path. ‘We will make a frontal assault here,’ Stannis said. ‘Your Northeastern men and wildlings will flank us on the right, and the Manderly troops on the left.’

Ragnar sat back, a strange, cool smile on his face. Bjørn was looking at him, Rollo too.

‘They will bring their soldiers along here,’ Stannis said. ‘Here. Arrowmen along the ridges which we will have to counter.’

‘Will we not send a group of raiders into Winterfell?’ Ser Wylis said. ‘Forgive me, but I am thinking of my father. It would do well to find out where the prisoners are.’ He glanced at Sansa. ‘As well as securing the safety of Lady Arya, of course.’

‘We attack as one,’ said Stannis, barely looking at him. ‘I am happy to send my men first, if that is your concern.’ Ser Wylis shook his head, and blustered something that could not quite be heard. ‘When we prevail, we’ll take a battering ram to the door. Get in that way and then storm the castle. Better that we win the battle on the ground first, and find your father.’ _And Arya_ , Sansa thought.

‘No,’ said Ragnar. ‘I am with the Fat – with Ser Wy-lis.’ He looked at Athelstan, who was there to translate, to Sansa’s relief. She had enough to take in without having to make sure that everyone understood each other. Athelstan continued to speak Ragnar’s words. ‘They will not bring all their men out to meet us. You say that they have almost one thousand more. We keep many with you, but we find another way in.’

‘This is a castle,’ said Stannis. ‘As I understand it, you do not have much knowledge of houses so great. We are not attacking straw-thatched cottages now.’

Ragnar’s grin was dangerous, and Sansa knew how insulted he was. She sat up. Ser Wylis and Stannis had maps of the North in great detail, but they did not have what she held in her mind. 

‘If I may speak,’ she said. Everyone looked at her. ‘There are ways to get close to Winterfell. You can’t see them on the maps.’ The fire cracked. ‘Might I have some paper?’

Around her, people drank the little ale remaining and shifted as Sansa drew. She took her time, sitting on her calves, letting her memory float back to a warm, childhood place. Imagined running round after various of her siblings or with Jeyne, in the halls and corridors, the crypts and weapon-chambers, and into the woods. 

‘There’s a way through the Wolfswood,’ she said. ‘You can get right up to the castle and along the wall to the Hunter’s Gate. It’s smaller. I think it’s possible for the walls to be scaled here, if enough guards are killed. There might be a lot of snow, though. And you will need planks to get across the waterways. And also –’

Perhaps she was saying too much. She had no experience of battle, apart from hiding with the women in the Red Keep during Blackwater. But Rollo had a little of the firelight in his eyes as he looked at her, and Bjørn was listening very carefully. Lagertha, too. Sansa put her finger on the map, and let Athelstan translate. ‘The Broken Tower. It was never well manned as the steps are unsafe. People would fall if they had to move quickly.’ She tried not to think of Bran, falling. Not now. She looked at Ragnar, spoke in his tongue. ‘It could be less well guarded.’

‘She’s right,’ said the Hound, who Ragnar had insisted be part of the council. ‘That’s as good a place as any to try and get in.’ 

‘We take a small party this way,’ said Ragnar. ‘My brother will do it.’ Rollo nodded, firmly, his face as set as dry mud, and Sansa felt a swelling pride mixed with panic at the thought of him so close to danger.

‘You’ll go with the word of Lannister traitor over mine?’ said Stannis. Sansa could see that he was trying desperately to lead this council, even though he had lost so much respect over what happened with Shireen, and his trust of Lady Melisandre.

The Hound shifted just a little. 

‘Yes.’ Ragnar leaned back, as if suddenly rather tired. ‘He knows the cas-tle from not so many years ago. And when did you last go to Win-ter-fell?’ A question that he made sound very curious and very bored at the same time.

Stannis did not say anything. There was a small twitch in his cheek as he stared at Sansa’s map. ‘Very well. We will tell the men. And hope the weather holds.’ He stood, abruptly, and left with the one man who was with him.

***

You sat with Ragnar, Bjørn, the Fat Earl, your wife. Looking again at her drawing of Win-ter-fell. Shapes, curved and straight, Long walls and towers. The wood-within-the-walls. It was a little bigger than the Ser Wy-lis’s house on the sea, Sansa had said, and you still could not believe that it might be your home. If you could just win this battle.

‘I will stay on the field, Father,’ said Bjørn. ‘I will fight in the open with him.’ You saw his bravery again, whittled now to something finer, sharper as he grew older. 

Ragnar nodded. ‘As will I,’ he said. ‘I look forward to fighting alongside my son once more.’ Your nephew could not stop his child’s smile, though he pocketed it again quickly.

‘And I will take the Broken Tower, with some of the wild people.’ said Lagertha. She looked at you. ‘You should take some of them, Rollo. They are good at wall-climbing.’

You nodded. ‘I do not think that Stannis should speak to our men.’

‘No,’ said your brother, lazily. ‘He will not.’

Sansa was staring at the map, running her finger along the Broken Tower, which she had drawn with a jagged edge.

There was a gentle voice behind you.

In the corner of the tent, Rickon sat with Shireen, who had Ylva on her lap. You kept looking over to check that the big wolf, Dog-With-Beard, had not eaten the little one – girl or wolf cub. But your little brother-in-law was clicking his fingers in the way that he did to talk to his wolf, and it sat down, big and heavy. Shireen was talking to him, and did not seem to mind that Rickon did not talk back. But you could see that he listened.

Ragnar sat up. ‘I will speak to our people tonight, and have the earls speak to theirs. Lagertha will speak to the wild people. Ser Wy-lis should speak to his men. Everyone will know what to do. But there is one person who must speak to everyone.’ And you knew as he said it that he was right.

Sansa looked up, as if waiting for words that she already knew the sound of. 

Your brother sat up, and did not look lazy any more. ‘It is you that they will be fighting for,’ he said to your wife. ‘Not just this king with his black heart.’

‘It is true, Lady Sansa,’ says Ser Wylis, who had Athelstan speaking quietly in his ear, and Athelstan spoke his words back to you now. ‘I will bolster up my men, but it would not hurt to have you speak to them. If you feel that you can.’

You saw her swan’s neck move as she swallowed. ‘Very well. I will do it.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Norse Mythology School:
> 
>  _Tanngrisnir_ (Old Norse for teeth-barer, snarler) is one of Thor's great goats who pulls his chariot. The other is Tanngnjóstr ('teeth grinder') 
> 
> _Njörðr_ is the god of wind.
> 
>  **Norse Numbering School** :
> 
> The word twelve was first recorded in 789, at about the time the Norse began raiding England. The Vikings used a system of counting based on twelves rather than tens. The word is derived from _twelf_ , old English for “two left [over ten]” which in turn is derived from the Proto-Germanic compound word _twa_ (two) and _lif_ (root of the verb 'leave').


	16. Ragnar Prepares Part Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ta to Editor ZoeSong.
> 
> Carrying straight on from the previous one, the night after the battle-council meeting.

She would speak to everyone. _She_ would.

Sansa sat outside with Osha, her own fur round her shoulders and one of Rollo’s on her knees, staring into the fire. Osha seemed to know better than to talk.

‘ _Raf refr_.’ Rollo squatted down in front of her and rested his palms on her knees. A look that was part forest, part nightfall. ‘Are you alright?’

‘Yes.’ She watched the cloud of breath spiral out with the word, twisting, breaking up into nothing. ‘I think so.’

‘You can do this,’ he said, his voice ember-warm. ‘You have all your words. Think of your home, and who is there. Think of your sister.’

She nodded.

‘Come to bed?’

‘Not yet.’ 

He nodded, and squeezed her knees as he stood up and disappeared into the dark.

Sansa looked for the faces of her family in the flames. _All your words_. She would have to hone her words like weapons. Tomorrow, these would be her first weapons, not the sword that he had made for her.

‘He’s a fine one, your husband, if you don’t mind my saying so, m’lady.’ Osha blew on her hands. 

‘I don’t.’ 

Osha didn’t seem to speak of Rollo in the same way as she did Bjørn, though she still had been looking at him admiringly enough. ‘You didn’t fancy picking one amongst your own kind?’

It wasn’t as if Sansa had looked over all of Kattegat’s men and pointed at Rollo. She bit her lip as she remembered the way that they had been drawn together, slowly, as the seasons had turned. ‘It didn’t turn out that way.’

‘I don’t bloody blame you,’ said Osha, looking up and around at the Baratheon and Manderly men stamping their feet, and Ser Wylis, standing puffing next to his set-down shield. ‘Your new lot are more like mine, but with better fur on their shoulders. Better than this bunch of limp cocks.’

Sansa wished that Thorunn were here. She and Osha would talk all night about men and their cocks. 

‘As long as they are willing to fight, I don’t care how limp their cocks are,’ she said, and bit on her lip much harder.

Osha looked at her, and grinned. ‘Well spoke, m’lady.’

***

I find Ragnar sitting alone at a fire, scratching his Ska-gos goat under the chin. ‘I almost wish I had not brought that to you,’ I say.

He gives me a look as if I am his naughty child and not his once-wife. 

‘Will she speak well, do you think?’ I say. Tonight I have walked with Sansa amongst some of the wild people, whom she had not really spoken to until now. She did well, and they did not seem cross to speak with her, even though I know they have bad blood, those beyond and below the Wall. But speaking to more fighters than I have ever seen in one place – it is something for a great warrior queen.

‘She will do it,’ says Ragnar, and I am surprised at how easy it is for him to say.

‘How do you know?’

He rests a hand on the goat’s flank. ‘It is small now, to think of it,’ he says. ‘To think of coming back from England to find that Jarl Borg had taken my home.’ I remember his face then, at the thought of his small sons lost in the hills. ‘She will do it because she wants her home back,’ he says before his eyes grow narrow, looking past me. ‘I hope that our son will not be too tired tomorrow.’

I turn to see what he looks at. A few tents away, I see Osha, tugging on Bjørn’s hand, and he does not look like he tries too hard to stop her. They duck their heads as they go into a tent. 

I smile at my hands. ‘It will give him strength before battle, and you know it.’ And good for him not to worry Thorunn’s spirit too much, but let her be as she pleases in Folkvangr.

Ragnar raises his eyebrows, and looks pleased and as if he is already lying back in a pile of warm furs. ‘Is that what you suggest for me too?’

‘You know full well who I will lie with tonight,’ I say. ‘And I know full well who you will lie with.’ I look at the goat again and smile at him. 

Ragnar closes his eyes, shakes his head, gives a sigh that is also a grin. He has cuts and dull purple marks on his hands, and one on his cheek. I go to touch it, use my thumb to tip his jawbone up. ‘How did you get those? And this?’

He moves his head away from my hand but brings his eyes up to mine, looking as a little lost child would. The goat is trying to pull away from him. ‘I think he would like to be back on his own land.’

I shake my head at him, and wonder how many of our own people might feel the same after tomorrow.

***

‘What are you looking at?’ 

You had not slept yet, instead wandering around talking to some of the men, and finding your friends. Floki and Torstein were playing hnefatafl, as best they could with shaved sticks and stones, and the Big Dog was with them, mostly frowning at their game as if goats dressed in skirts were dancing in front of him. But now he stared at you, or rather at your arm.

You looked down at it. ‘This? Not as good as yours, I know,’ you said, in your own tongue. ‘How did you get that?’ You waved your finger at your own cheek.

He spoke some words, dark as wood-ash, and did not sound like he was telling you the story of his face.

‘Don’t fight,’ Sansa said, sitting down next to you. As if you were two wild dogs growling at each other. The Big Dog spoke to her, and she spoke back. ‘He wants to know why you would burn yourself willingly,’ she says. ‘And I told him why, and how brave you were.’ Her eyes were darkful of pride, at last, although they changed when she heard him say something else. 

‘Do not hide it, _raf refr_ ,’ you said. ‘If he wishes to insult me, I will hear it.’ And smash the other side of his face in, at least in your thoughts. But it was true that he seemed to know Wint-er-fell well. More than any of you, at least. 

She looked into her own cup, sighing. ‘He said that there hadn’t been much point, had there? To make a show of faith. Bravery like that gets men killed.’

You sighed, too. ‘It is true that I did not know what would happen to the little girl. But it was right at the time. My gods will know what I did. Týr put his hand into Fenrir’s mouth. It is all part of my fate, the path that the gods have made for me.’ You nodded at the Big Dog. ‘Tell him. Tell him that the gods know when we are to die. That we are all fated.’

He listened, spoke. ‘Fuck fate.’

You understood that well enough, and this new word in their tongue. ‘No,’ you said, in his words. ‘This the only thing you not fuck. Fate your mother. Fate your father. Fate your life. Go fuck goat, if you want one. Maybe Ragnar’s new goat.’

He looked at you, and then did something you had not seen before. Shook his head and grinned, a smile that made his face twist like Yggdrasil’s roots. Said two words.

You looked at your wife.

She dropped her shoulders. ‘He says you’re mad.’

‘Yes,’ you say, and made your eyes _bezerkr_. Knocked your cup against your head, before pointing it towards his. ‘And you mad, too.’ And tomorrow, you would fight. Both of you, and perhaps this time not against each other.

***

Sansa had got up early and watched the dawn light rise. She had not slept enough, the words rattling around in her skull, trying to work out ways to sew them together into strong shapes. She had found a shieldmaiden to braid her hair, and borrowed some of Floki’s black kohl to put in a thin line around her eyes. Her battle-torc was on her wrist, Lagertha’s dagger tied to her ankle, and Rollo’s wedding-gifted sword at her hip. 

Ylva had scratched at her leg and she had told her no. This morning was not the time for a wolf-cub to sit in her arms. She had given her to Shireen, who had been more than happy to have her at her heels. 

And now they were ready and in place. Ser Wylis’ men stood neatly, alert, and a rough platform had been made for Sansa to address them from. Her heart was a massive boulder, and lodged in her throat. She couldn’t do this. She was not her father.

‘Ready, _raf refr_?’ Rollo was behind her, warm breath on her ear, a hand on her back for the merest moment.

‘ _No_ ,’ she whispered. Her bones were like crumbling paper. There was Rickon and Shaggydog. Her brother was staring at the platform as if he was thinking about burning it.

Rollo stood in front of her. She wanted to grab his hands, fold herself into him. But if any of these first rows of Manderly men saw that, she might as well bury herself in the snow. ‘You are the strongest woman I know,’ he said, and his eyes were the dark-shadowed forests of Kattegat. She stared at him, and the confidence he seemed to have in her was enough to make her nod, and take the first step up to the platform.

Ser Wylis was already there, and Stannis, too. He had spoken to the men in clipped tones, and it was if he was simply telling them something he expected them to do. Used the word _duty_. Had not mentioned fire, or the Lord of Light. Selyse had stood behind him, her face gaunt, her eyes dull. Now Ragnar was at the ground level, leaning his elbow on the side of the platform, watching Sansa with his flint-strike eyes. And now, as she turned, she saw wave after wave of soldiers, merman banners fluttering sporadically, and a thousand expectant faces. Some that she recognised from her days at White Harbour and on the move, and many that she did not.

Ragnar had told her to speak from her belly, not from her throat. ‘The fire is down here,’ he had said, and patted her stomach lightly. ‘This way many of them will hear you, and the ones who do not will get it from those closer. A wave of your words, travelling backwards.’ And now her throat was as dry as a summer stream-bed. 

A man coughed, somewhere in the middle of everyone. 

Sansa looked at Rollo, standing a little to the side and behind her, and remembered what he had said. _Think of your home. Your sister_. Arya, imprisoned, tortured even, by them. The heart, the lungs of her home ripped out by Roose Bolton – though it was the Lannister’s will, he had been there. He had killed her mother. Her brother. And she thought again of what might happen to all these people who had taken her in, cared for her, loved her, if the fight was lost.

‘House Manderly’, she said. Too quiet. From the belly. ‘House Manderly,’ she said again, an almost-shout that surprised her. ‘the Starks have been a noble house of the North for eight thousand years. We have ruled as Kings or Wardens and have always held the interests of the North above all others and been your trusted friends and allies.’

This new voice of hers was deeper. More like Lagertha’s. She wondered faintly if Arya would laugh at her, to hear her speak like this. Or watch her, and be proud. _Arya_. Bran. Robb.

The flames sparked in her belly. ‘The Lannisters beheaded my father in cold blood right in front of me, having promised him his life. They rule at King’s Landing, but King’s Landing is _not_ the North.’

From the corner of her eye, she saw Ser Wylis give a short, definite nod.

‘The Boltons are traitors. They hold your Lord at Winterfell as a prisoner, after inviting him there. They conspired with the Freys and the Lannisters to kill my family. To kill _your_ North. They are cheaters, murderers, and have only their own interests at heart. They do not care about our great land, or the danger that lies beyond the Wall. They only care for money, and power. They will kill to get what they want.’

Some of the men shifted. She would keep this short.

‘They thought that they had destroyed House Stark. When they found my sister Arya, they captured her, thinking that this meant they still had the North. But they did not know this.’ She looked back at her brother, who was standing next to Rollo, with Shaggydog next to him. ‘That my brother Rickon is alive. That somewhere, my brother Bran is alive. That _I_ am alive.’ She had never felt more alive, and more terrified of it. ‘That I have made my family grow, and that my new family has other lands, and skilled leaders and fighters that will terrify them.’

Ragnar looked down at his feet, a sort of coy grin.

‘We are stronger than they know, and you make us stronger,’ Sansa said, feeling her lungs swell. ‘If we take Winterfell, I give you my promise that House Stark and House Manderly will work together to bring all the Houses of the North into alliance. That House Manderly will be our most trusted ally and given the greatest importance. That North will be strong again.’

Ser Wylis stepped forward, seeming to sense that these words were her last, thank the gods. ‘What do you say, House Manderly?’ His voice was deeper, too, and as plump as his belly.

There was a moment of silence, before a single word, spoken by a thousand men, came back. 

‘Ay.’

***

The princess looks very young, and very pale. Like the girl who had washed up on the white ridge of beach. ‘Perhaps you do not wish to speak to them,’ Ragnar says to her. It is a short while later, and the fishmen have moved back to let his own people come to hear her speak. She did well, with the Fat Earl’s warriors. Though that was the easy part – they were always going to fight for the land that they already lived in.

Sansa swallows, as if Thor swallowing the sea for strength, and then he thinks of Þrúðr, who was almost married to the dwarf Alviss, and the pale girl has gone. ‘No. I will.’ She nods at him.

Ragnar walks up onto the platform. He did not wish to stand on it when that coward-king was also there. ‘Everyone.’ He uses his bull-bellowing voice, and his people stand. ‘You have heard me speak, many times. Perhaps too many times, for some of you.’ Torstein grins up at him, but it is a grin that has the grit of the fight to come. ‘Tomorrow there will be a great battle. Think of your families at home, and their pride at your warrior-blood. Think of your gods. I fight for us, for all of us. And for this woman, Earl Stark.’

She looks at him in surprise. Well, there is no word for the one they used in their West-er-os tongue. He takes one step back, folds his hands. Waits.

Sansa stands. A thin, firm birch. Speak, he thinks, before I look like an idiot.

And she does. ‘Today you are being asked to fight for someone that many of you do not know.’ She stops, as if she is listening to the wind, as if it is telling her what to say. ‘But King Ragnar and the people of Kattegat took me into their home when I had nothing.’ 

She looks over to him, and he simply looks back. It is true. He could have made her a slave-girl. 

Her voice lifts a little, as if it has wings. He cannot pretend to not marvel at how she has mastered their tongue. She only asked him for two this morning, saying them over and over until they had stuck. ‘He trusted my word, and I proved, by you setting foot on this land, that my word was true. And I give you my word now. That if we take Winterfell, which is my home, my birthright, that I will give King Ragnar what he desires.’

What does he desire, he thinks. The warm fists of his children in his hair. The cool smile of his wife, perhaps. No, it is not just that. The princess knows him. 

‘Land,’ she says, as if it is gold. ‘I know we are in winter now, and I cannot tell you when it will end, but I can also promise you long pastures, long hay-making times, long harvests. The Wild Hunts here can be long, but there are times when it is always midsummer. The North can be a rich and giving place, with the right people ruling.’

She looks over at him. ‘And there is opportunity for further battle, if he wishes for more.’ 

At this he nods to her and tells himself to remember this, when they have Wint-er-fell. If they do not become fodder for the ravens. Thinks of King’s Landing again, tucked away in the south of this land. Thinks not just of the richness of earth, but of glittering metal, and thrones to sit on.

A slow, clattering noise. Below him, his warriors begin to hit their weapon-blades on their shields, and Sansa stands straighter, and looks at Rollo, who smiles a slow, battle-ready smile at her.

***

She was exhausted. Almost all her words spent, and her throat raw from shouting. She wanted to curl up in Rollo’s arms, burrow into him. She wanted her mother. But there was one group of people left that she had to address.

Sansa stood before the huge ragged mass of men, women and children, clad in bear-fur and wolfskins. Bones in their hair, their noses. The people that Old Nan had spun stories of at her bedside, to Sansa’s disgusted relish, and who her father warned her of. She had managed to speak to some of the fiercest-looking fighters with Lagertha last night, but this is what she needed to do now, with words different again from those she had used for the Manderly men, and for Ragnar’s. There was no one leader to win over. Behind her, Osha stood with her hands on Rickon’s shoulders, and Shaggydog beside them. She filled her lungs with the cold-slicing air, a slow, fortifying breath.

‘The history of my people, and of yours, has always been of fighting,’ she said. Shouted. ‘Everyone north of the Wall has fought those living south of it. We have feared you and you have hated us.’

One man near the front, who had walrus tusks strung round his neck, gave a dark bark of a laugh. ‘Too bloody right.’ Others around him laughed, too.

Sansa’s jaw grew tight. ‘I can understand if you do not see me as any different from House Bolton, who have taken my home. I am of the south, and you of the north. But I learnt from my father, who learnt from his father before him, and generations stretching back longer than any of us can imagine, that there are codes. That men do not lie, and stab others in the back. That if you fight, you do it face to face.’

‘Like you, then?’ A man a little more to her left, who wore thick bronze around his wrists, and a bar through his nose.

‘Yes, like her,’ said Lagertha, her voice a stripped, pale rod. ‘Your women fight. I have seen Sansa fight.’ Se raised her eyebrows at the man, whom she seemed familiar with. ‘She is like you more than you think, Coburg.’

Grateful for the defence, Sansa tilted slightly to the side, shifting her hip so that her sword stuck out a little. ‘I am new to fighting, but I will fight. It is my home.’

‘Ay, yours. Not ours,’ said the man wearing the tusks, folding his arms. Near him, a dark-haired woman who might have been a sister of Osha’s, had her hands on the shoulders of a child - it was hard to tell whether it was a boy or a girl - in front of her. The child’s eyes were big, dark, hungry.

As much as the man’s words were an attack, Sansa knew then what she must say, and how to say it.

‘My brother Jon Snow, Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, has seen the danger that you have seen. He fought alongside you, and brought you here to safety beyond the Wall.’ She glanced again at Lagertha, who stood below her, a lock of hair blowing across her cheek. Lagertha’s eyes gave her strength. They were shields, and they were warm pools. ‘I know from Earl Ingstad what terrible danger is in the North, a danger that makes this fight, and all others on Westeros seem unimportant. You are the Free Folk, but you will not be free if – they grow in strength.’ 

_They_. It was still difficult to grasp all that she had heard from Lagertha, but she believed them. It was word from Jon, and that was enough. Jon could never make up a good story. He was always too interested in real life. 

‘My brother Rickon, when he is old enough, will be King of the North. And I give you my word that from the moment we take Winterfell from the Boltons, there will be change. That the story of your people and mine, those beyond the Wall and below it, will be different. That we will fight together, not fight each other.’

The woman lifted a hand, bit on her nails, listening closely. 

‘I give you my word that if House Stark gains the north again, I will work with all the Houses to build an army to go back. Back beyond the Wall, to fight the darkness that grows there. So that you can truly be the Free Folk.’

The wind lifted, small howls as if wolves were on distant hills. Sansa looked down at the mass of wildlings, who stood still, staring back up at her. She was a hollowed-out bone. What more could she say? If they wanted more, if they wanted freedom south of the Wall, she could not fully give it. Not without holding meetings with every northern House, and every southern one, too. It was too much to comprehend.

A tall man with red hair, lighter and brighter than hers, spat loudly. Her heart fell. ‘We’ll never bend the knee to you.’ 

‘I know,’ she said. ‘I don’t want you to bend the knee. I want you to stand alongside me.’

He gave a loud sniff, almost amused, and slowly lifted the rusted sword he held, just a little higher than his head. ‘Then I’ll fight.’

And slowly, other weapons began to be raised into the air, until there was a sea of them, as if points of waves, glinting dully in the sun. 

Sansa stood before them, before everyone who would fight, herself a weapon, dully glinting. This is it, she thought. This is my life. My death. 

Winterfell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PHEW. Ok. I'll be back. Or will just continue hoping that Ragnar And The Battle of Winterfell (Parts 1-50) will write itself. *runs*
> 
>  
> 
> **  
> **  
> Norse Mythology School  
>  _Þrúðr_ is the daughter of Thor.
> 
>  _Folkvangr_ is Freyja's field of warriors, one of the possible afterlifes.
> 
>  _hnefatafl_ is the Norse's favourite board game!
> 
>  _Týr_ is associated with law and heroic glory. He put his hand into the great wolf Fenrir’s mouth in an act of bravery.
> 
>  _Yggdrasil_ is the great tree of life.


End file.
